Updated April 2026 · SEC DEF 14A data
CEO Pay Blog
Data-driven analysis of executive compensation at U.S. public companies, every story anchored to the underlying SEC DEF 14A proxy statement. We track 34 companies and 34 named CEOs, each with a real SEC-disclosed total compensation figure. The average top-10 CEO in the dataset earns $70.8M.
What This Blog Covers
CEO pay is one of the most disclosed and least understood numbers in public markets. Every U.S. public company is required to publish a Summary Compensation Table in its annual proxy statement, broken into salary, stock awards, option awards, non-equity incentives, pension change, and other compensation. The headline "total comp" figure routinely runs 50–70% stock-based, which means it is sensitive to grant-date fair value assumptions under FASB ASC 718 rather than what the executive actually realized. We translate those filings into plain-English summaries so a long-term holder, a board director, or a curious worker can read the numbers without a securities-law background.
The blog focuses on a simple, verifiable question: how much do the highest-paid CEOs earn, and is the number going up or down? Each post reports the SEC-disclosed headline total only and links back to the relevant ranking, company profile, or industry comparison so the underlying records are one click away.
Authoritative external context: the SEC's EDGAR system hosts every proxy filing referenced here. Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis provide the proxy-advisor recommendations that drive most institutional say-on-pay votes. The Economic Policy Institute publishes the long-run CEO-to-worker pay context.
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How We Source and Verify Every Number
The pipeline starts at SEC EDGAR, where we fetch each company's most recent DEF 14A as machine-readable iXBRL. The headline total-compensation figure maps directly to the standardized SEC tag ecd:PeoTotalCompAmt (the Summary Compensation Table "Total" line), so no parsing of free-text disclosures is required for the number we report. Revenue, market cap, and employee count come from the corresponding 10-K under SEC Regulation S-K Item 402.
We report the SEC-disclosed total only and never estimate it. Companies without a real disclosed CEO total are not included. The full methodology page documents the data sources and what we deliberately do not publish.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where does CEOPayWatch source its compensation data?
Every compensation figure on this site is the SEC-disclosed headline total (iXBRL ecd:PeoTotalCompAmt — the Summary Compensation Table "Total" line) from the DEF 14A proxy statement that each U.S. public company files annually before its shareholder meeting, available on the SEC EDGAR system at https://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml. There is no surveying, no estimating, and no proprietary smoothing — only what the company itself disclosed to the SEC.
How often is the CEO pay data updated?
Proxy season runs from late February through July each year. As DEF 14A filings hit EDGAR, the affected company, executive, industry, and ranking pages are rebuilt. The current dataset covers 34 companies with a real SEC-disclosed CEO total and 34 named CEOs. The site was last updated April 2026.
Is every number a real disclosed figure?
Yes. We report only the SEC-disclosed headline total compensation. Companies without a real disclosed CEO total are not shown, and no figure is ever estimated. The per-line-item salary/stock/option split is disclosed inside each proxy and is not reproduced here.
Why does CEO pay matter to shareholders and workers?
Executive compensation is one of the largest discretionary expenses most public-company boards approve each year, and it sits at the centre of corporate governance. The average top-10 CEO in our dataset earns $70.8M. Say-on-pay votes, mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act since 2011, are the formal channel shareholders use to push back on a pay package.
How is this blog different from a regular finance blog?
Every post is anchored to a structured dataset: each figure links to the company profile and to the underlying DEF 14A on SEC EDGAR. Readers can always click through to the raw SEC source. That data-first discipline is closer to a Bloomberg or ISS workflow than a typical opinion blog.
Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, DEF 14A proxy statements via EDGAR. Public domain.
Last updated 2026-04-06 · 34 companies, 34 executives.