"A Deep Dive into the Second Year of CEO Pay Ratio Disclosures" from Compensation Advisory Partners provides an overview of Year Two pay ratio disclosure practices in comparison to Year One based on the firm's review of 201 company proxies filed in 2019 reflecting multiple industries and a median revenue of $2.1B.
Among the key takeaways:
- Pay Ratio: 36% of companies used the same median employee year-over-year.
- For those that used the same median employee, the pay of that employee increased between 7% and 8% at the median, compared to new median employee pay, which remained relatively flat at between 0 and 4%.
- For those companies that selected a new median employee, 20% selected a substantially similar employee from the previous year.
- Two-thirds of companies had year-over-year changes in the pay ratio of more than +/-10%.
- CEO pay increased 7% at the median compared to 5% for the median employee.
- Supplemental ratios: Generally on par with last year, 9% of companies disclosed a supplemental pay ratio - commonly, an alternate CEO compensation calculation.
- Supplemental median employee disclosure: 16% of companies disclosed additional information about their median employee (e.g., geographic location, role with the company, full-time vs. part-time, etc.) - up from 12% of last year's early-filer sample and 14% for the S&P 500.
- Location: Generally on par with last year, the vast majority of companies disclosed the ratio within (21%) or after (70%) the compensation tables.
- De Minimis & other exemptions: Of the 37% of companies that excluded some of their workforce when determining the median employee, the de minimis exemption was most commonly used.
See the detailed data in the report's Appendix; these WSJ articles: "From Coke to Macy’s, Pay for Typical Worker Takes Big Swings," and "Finance’s Top Earners Don’t Work at a Bank"; ISS's YoY comparisons of the CEO pay ratio in its new post: "2019 U.S. Executive Compensation Trends"; and additional information & resources on our Pay Ratio page.
This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!