Obama's Jobs Council: A Look at Pay Packets of Group

Oct. 11, 2011 — -- President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness meets today in Pittsburgh, the third time the group of executives will gather. Sure to be on the agenda will be the country's stagnant labor market, but it's doubtful the council will discuss their own executive compensation, which runs well into the millions annually for many in the group.

The last time the jobs council met was June 13 in Durham, N.C. after which the panel presented 11 ideas to the president, including promoting small business exports, graduating 10,000 more engineers in the U.S., and building workforce skills in advanced manufacturing.

The 27 members of the jobs council include current and former CEOs, academics and industry leaders, including AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka and United Food and Commercial Workers Union president Joseph Hansen.

The purpose of the president's jobs council is "to provide non-partisan advice to the president on continuing to strengthen the nation's economy and ensure the competitiveness of the United States and on ways to create jobs, opportunity, and prosperity for the American people."

Equilar, an executive compensation data firm, provided the salaries of 12 members of the council, publicly available in their most recent proxy statements, which are usually filed before an annual shareholders' meeting. Financial services not-for-profit TIAA-CREF voluntarily publishes the data for its CEO. The average compensation for 2010 of those 12 members of the council was about $11.2 million.

According to Equilar, the median total compensation for all S&P 500 CEOs was $9 million, an increase of 28.2 percent in 2010 compared with 2009, after two consecutive years of decline. Equilar found bonus payouts had the highest growth of all compensation components in 2010 from 2009. Median total bonus payouts for S&P 500 CEOs increased to $2.2 million in 2010, up 43.3 percent from the 2009.

About 85 percent of CEOs received an annual bonus payout in 2010, compared to 73.6 percent in 2009.

Equilar calculated their "perks/other" column from the company's proxy statement under the "all other compensation" category. All values including the stock and option awards are taken as disclosed by the company using their valuation method. But there is no guarantee that executives will actually realize the amounts listed for the equity awards, depending on stock price movements.

Other salaries of council members not in annual prospectus information but publicly available include that of Richard Trumka, president of AFL-CIO. His gross salary is $264,827 and benefits and compensation is $18,513 for a total of $283,340, according to the Labor Department. UFCW president Joseph Hansen has a gross salary of $309,283, official business of $31,641, other compensation of $11,834 for total compensation of $352,758.

Others not on Equilar's list include UBS Group Americas CEO Robert Wolf and former Procter & Gamble CEO Alan G. Lafley. As director of General Electric, Lafley earned $50,000 in fees, $176,246 in stock awards and $56,200 in all other compensation for a total of $282,446 in 2010, according to Fortune.

Here are the salaries of 12 of the 27 members of the president's jobs council with publicly available prospectus information, according to Equilar:

1. Brian L. Roberts, CEO: $28.2 million Comcast (CMCSA), internet provider and cable operator

Base salary: $2,800,761 Cash bonus: $10,922,968 Perks/other: $3,205,767 Stock awards: $5,308,989 Option awards: $5,917,380

A spokesman for Comcast confirmed the salary figures and said the company has over 4,800 job openings.

2. Kenneth I. Chenault, CEO: $16.3 million American Express (AXP), financial services company

Base salary: $1,942,308 Cash bonus: $2,000,000 Perks/other: $1,095,647 Stock awards: $2,049,971 Option awards: $9,164,925

A spokeswoman for American Express declined to comment.

3. Paul S. Otellini, CEO: $15.5 million Intel (INTC), technology chip maker

Base salary: $1,000,000 Cash bonus: $6,820,400 Perks/other: $382,100 Stock awards: $6,236,800 Option awards: $1,082,200

Otellini's compensation according to Intel's 2010 proxy statement was $15,652,500.

Equilar did not include the change in pension value and non-qualified deferred compensation earnings figure. A spokesman for Equilar said the company does not typically include that figure because the executive will not see any value until they retire.

Intel says it plans to hire 4,000 people this year, mostly engineers in supporting R&D and manufacturing in Oregon, Arizona, California, New Mexico and Massachusetts, said a company spokeswoman.

4. Jeffrey R. Immelt, CEO: $15.1 millionGeneral Electric (GE), energy, technology, consumer products and financial services company

Base salary: $3,300,000 Cash bonus: $4,000,000 Perks/other: $389,809 Stock awards: --Option awards: $7,400,000

A spokesman pointed out that since 2009, GE has announced the creation of 8,000 new U.S, jobs, 7,000 of which are industrial jobs and that GE will hire about 15,000 people in the country in 2011.

5. W. James McNerney Jr., CEO: $13.8 million Boeing (BA), defense and aerospace contractor

Base salary: $1,930,000 Cash bonus: $4,439,000 Perks/other: $798,392 Stock awards: $3,300,330 Option awards: $3,300,297

In January, Boeing announced 1,100 layoffs but had a spokesman said the company will have a net gain in U. S. jobs this year in Washington state and South Carolina.