Believe It or Not: Average Joes Trump C.E.O.s in Pay

Did C.E.O. compensation gains fall behind that of other Americans?

The median pay for 233 chief execs of S&P 500 companies who were in office for at least two years rose 1.3 percent last year, according to an updated analysis by executive compensation research firm Equilar.

(This figure is lower than the 5 percent gain reported by the New York Times on Sunday as that version of the Equilar study included a smaller group of C.E.O.s.)

Census figures on median family income haven't been released yet for 2007, but other wage data suggests that the pay for the rest of us actually outpaced C.E.O. earnings in 2007.

Data from the National Association of Realtors shows that median family income rose 2.8 percent last year while average hourly earnings for production workers also outpaced C.E.O. compensation, rising 3.7 percent.

Is this trend likely to continue? It might if Barack Obama gets his way. This morning he called for "legislation to require corporations to hold a nonbinding shareholders vote on compensation packages offered to executives."

For other -- non-traditional -- thoughts on C.E.O. pay, I recommend watching the following short interview with Aflac C.E.O. Daniel Amos. Aflac is the first major U.S. public company to put its compensation policies up for stockholder review: