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President Obama recently signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. This is designed to guarantee equal compensation for men and women. However, there are already laws regarding wage discrimination that apparently are not working when it comes to equal pay for women. The real truth of the matter is that women are still paid less than their male counterparts. In 2009, America's top paid female CEO's earned on an average $3.9 million compared to their male counterparts that earned an average of $11.9 million.
Some say that compensation is a complex thing, an art. It could be based on the length of time an executive has been with the company, their ability to return value to shareholders, their relationship with the board and a desire of the directors to keep him/her from moving on.
Carol Meyrowitz is the chief executive of TJX, the company that owns Marshall's and TJ Maxx. She earned $11.1 million over the last year. Jeffrey Immelt, the head of General Electric, took home $11.5 million. TJX's 2008 sales were $19 billion, and GE's 2008 sales were $170 billion.
Meyrowitz is succeeding, while Immelt is fending off suggestions that he can not manage a company so exposed to the rocky financial system. Executive women are still struggling for respect. Lynn Elsenhans, who is the only woman running a big oil company, was paid $2.2 million last year by Sunoco. Bruce Smith is the head of refining company Tesoro, he took home $18.6 million.
Public outrage over outlandish executive compensation is spurring closer government scrutiny of executive pay. President Obama has appointed a "pay nazi". However, the women on the list do not risk suffering pay caps or reductions. There are no women running big financial institutions, banks, brokerages and insurance companies. These have been targets of outrage due to Government bail outs.
When you put the top paid women against their male peers, they don't even stick out. The top paid banking chief, Ronald Hermance, Jr. of Hudson City Bancorp, took home $42 million. The top paid female chief executive on the Forbes list, Andrea Jung of Avon Products, earned $11.8 million.
Nine of the women on Forbes list are new to the job in 2009. These include Ellen Kullman at DuPont and Ilene Gordon at Corn Products International. In addition, compensation is more than just pay, it includes stock options, bonuses and perks. Patricia Woertz of Archer Daniels Midland is an example. She can get up to $80,000 for use of the corporate jet and $40,000 towards the costs of financial planning. Susan Ivey runs ReynoldsAmerican, and she receives $30,000 toward country club membership dues.
The group of top women executives is so small that it is almost statistically insignificant. Of the 1000 largest publicly traded companies by revenue, only 27 women are in the CEO's chair. In general women still earn only 78% of their male counterparts.
For More Information: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/americas-top-paid-female-ceos/Story?id=8661758&page=3
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