Report reveals huge gap between CEO and worker pay

According to a new study conducted by jobs and recruiting company Glassdoor, Discovery Communications has topped the list of companies with the highest pay difference between their chief executives and median workers. The study revealed that the ratio between the salaries of CEO David M. Zaslav and the median pay of the Discovery workers was 1,951 to 1. In the year 2014, Zaslav made $156 million, while the median pay was $80,000. Discovery communications is a reputed company and owns many popular US channels which include Discovery Network, TLC and Animal Planet. After the report, the company was contacted for a comment or a reaction on the findings of the study but they were not available for an immediate response.

The second place in the list was awarded to Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. which showed a pay ratio of 1,522 to 1. Chipotle was followed by CVS Health and it had a ratio of 1,192 to 1. CVS Health’s spokesperson Michael DeAngelis said in a statement that annual compensation for its CEO and other executives is in line with the industry standards and it also closely reflects the company’s financial performance and success. This study also provided an inside view into the CEO pay ratio disclosure approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to the new rule, the nation’s 4000 publicly trading companies need to disclose the ration of the CEO’s annual total compensation to the median compensation of the company’s employees.

Glassdoor has worked for years to collect thousands of salary reports over the years from employees to encourage pay transparency in the workplace, giving a unique window into worker pay. However, Glassdoor is not the first to publish report on the estimated pay ratios.

Robert Jackson Jr., who is a professor at Columbia Law School, said, “It’s unclear whether the various studies on CEO pay have influenced public or shareholder opinion. But the ration alone may not say everything the pay difference. Investors should look at the compensation ratio in relation to other information. Most of the Americans don’t mind much when CEOs make a lot of money if they perform. What bothers them is if they get paid when they fail.” These salary reports also might not represent full distribution of jobs at the company, which makes it sort of, impossible to make sure that all the position were accounted for while conducting the study. Glassdoor based its analysis based on 441 large, publicly traded companies listed in the Standard& Poor’s 500 index.