CEO pay increases by a median 27%

After three years of declining pay, CEOs at US companies saw their compensation rise by a median 27 percent in 2010, according to the ninth annual report on CEO pay from research firm GMI, formerly called the Corporate Library.

GMI calculated CEOs’ total realized compensation – which includes base salary plus perks, pensions and stock awards – from more than 3,200 proxy statements, the Los Angeles Times reported.

For the heads of S&P 500 companies, compensation increased by a median of 37 percent, the Guardian reported. Midcap companies increased their chief executives’ compensation by a median 40 percent.

Meanwhile, MoneyWatch noted, the pay increase for non-executive employees at US companies in 2010 was 2.1 percent.

"Wages for everybody else have either been in decline or stagnated in this period, and that's for those who are in work," Paul Hodgson, a senior research associate at GMI, told the Guardian. "I had a feeling that we would see some significant increases this year. But 30 to 40 percent was something of a surprise."

John H. Hammergren of healthcare company McKesson Corp. was the highest-paid CEO in 2010, taking home $145.3 million in compensation, the LA Times reported. His base salary of $1.6 million was supplemented by more than 3.3 million exercised stock options, which earned him a profit of $112 million.

Three of the ten executives with the biggest pay packages were in the healthcare industry, while another two were in real estate, MoneyWatch reported. Four CEOs on the list retired or were let go last year, pumping up their pay with severance or stock sales on the way out, the LA Times reported.