The document summarizes the disparity between CEO and typical worker retirement benefits in the United States. Some key points: - CEOs of large companies can defer unlimited annual contributions to their 401(k)s, while typical workers under 50 are limited to $18,000. - SEC now requires companies to disclose the ratio between CEO and median worker pay annually. - The average monthly retirement check for the top 100 US CEOs is $277,686, totaling $4.9 billion for their retirement funds. - In contrast, the average retirement fund for a typical worker at Yum Brands (Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC) is just $70,167,

1. Originally published in the November 2015 issue of Too Much, the Institute for Policy
Studies newsletter on excess and inequality. Subscribe at www.toomuchonline.org.
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Expected monthly retirement
check for David Hote, CEO,
Honeywell, one of nation’s 50
largest federal contractors
Annual earnings that American workers under age 50 can defer
from taxes into a 401(k) retirement account: just $18,000.
Annual earnings that CEOs can defer: no limit.
On August 5, the Securities and
Exchange Commission adopted
new federal regulations that
require publicly traded U.S.
corporations to start annually
disclosing the ratio between
their CEO and median — most
typical — worker pay.
Corporate America had spent
the previous five years
lobbying fiercely to kill this
disclosure mandate.
*A large proportion of Yum workers have no retirement program at all.
“The CEO-worker retirement divide has turned
our country's already extreme income divide into
an even wider economic chasm.”
Sarah Anderson, co-author, A Tale of Two Retirements
Sources: Sarah Anderson and Scott Klinger, A Tale of Two Retirements, Center for
Effective Government and Institute for Policy Studies, October 2015. Shuttlestock.
How to retire on $277,686 per month
Easy. Just become a CEO
at a major American corporation.
America’s 100 most plush CEO retirement nesteggs
now total $4.9 billion, enough to hand those top 100 CEOs
an average monthly check of a quarter of a million dollars for the rest of their lives.
How have America’s chief execs amassed such huge retirement
windfalls? Having rules rigged their way helps, quite a bit.
Total deferred savings for Yum Brands
CEO David Novak, as of start of 2015
Total deferred savings of average Yum Brands
(Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC) worker with 401(k)
$232,612,208
$70,167*
American workers have to depend on 401(k)s because corporate execs have
been eliminating traditional “defined benefit” pensions that guarantee
workers a specific monthly sum based on years of service and earnings.
18%
35%
2011
1990-1991
% of private-sector workers in defined benefit plans
Drug giant McKesson closed its pension plan to new hires in 1996.
McKesson CEO John Hammergren now holds a retirement account
large enough to guarantee him a $819,243 monthly check for life.
The most unforgivable
aspect of our current
top-heavy distribution of
retirement benefits? Our
tax dollars actually
subsidize it, in part
through the contracting
different levels of
government do with the
private sector.
Our tax dollars at work
$948,287