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As reported in this week's Society Alert, Deloitte's analysis of 294 S&P 500 CEO pay ratio disclosures to date, which debuted in connection with the Society Securities Law Committee-hosted April 18th teleconference: "Pay Ratio Rules: What To Do Now" (audio archive here), reveals these among other noteworthy takeaways:

• Median employee's total annual compensation is $70,867.
• 21% of companies disclosed information about the median employee's employment status, geographic location, and/or role.
• Larger companies (by revenue) had higher median ratios than smaller companies; however, the median employee's pay did not correlate with revenue size. Rather, CEO compensation drives the company size/pay ratio correlation.
• No companies used the data privacy exemption; 43% of companies used the de minimis exemption to reduce the number of countries from which they needed to obtain data; and 14% used the acquisition exclusion.
• 13% of companies disclosed alternative ratios.

• The median CEO pay ratio of the S&P 500 (n=332) is more than 2x the median ratio of the Russell 3000 (n=1,395), e.g., 155x compared to 73x, respectively, at the 50th percentile.
• Median employee pay for S&P 500 companies is 10% higher than Russell 3000 companies at the 25th, 50th and 75th percentiles, at which point they are comparable. However, generally, median employee compensation has little correlation with company size.
• Consistent with Deloitte's S&P 500 analysis above, the CEO Pay Ratio is more heavily influenced by the magnitude and variance in CEO compensation than by the median employee pay. CEO compensation generally correlates with company size.
• The CEO pay ratio distribution peaks at 73x at the 50th percentile for the Russell 3000, and at 155x (50th percentile) for the S&P 500.