There are millionaires, there are billionaires, and then there are the people who earn over a billion dollars in a single year. For the first time ever, the financial research firm GMI Ratings has found two CEOs making over $1 billion in annual income, according to the firm’s 2013 CEO Pay Survey.
The highest paid CEO in America last year was Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who raked in nearly $2.3 billion over the course of 2012, according to the survey.
The runner up was Richard Kinder of the energy company Kinder Morgan, who earned a mere $1.1 billion, less than half of Zuckerberg’s income. Sirius XM’s Mel Karmazin came in a distant third, collecting only a little over $255 million.
GMI Ratings surveyed over 2,200 top executives across the country in order to establish its rankings, according to a statement from the firm. Overall, the survey found that base salaries rose 2.9%, while total median compensation increased a healthy 8.47% between 2011 and 2012. Other studies have shown that non-CEO Americans have not seen a commensurate increase in their income over the past year. For example, the U.S. Census’ latest report on income and poverty found that overall household income in 2012 was “not statistically different from the levels in 2011.”
The gap between skyrocketing CEO pay and relatively stagnant compensation for everyone else has been widening for decades. While annual CEO compensation increased by 726.7% between 1978 and 2011, average worker compensation only went up 5.7% during the same time, according to a 2012 study by the Economic Policy Institute.
Ned Resnikoff is an urban policy analyst, researcher, writer, and editor. His byline has appeared in a variety of publications, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Dissent, and The Nation. He writes the newsletter Public Comment, which can be found at publiccomment.blog.