--- title: Most Americans Can't Guess the Average CEO's Salary. Can You? description: The typical guess for CEO salaries is off by a factor of more than 10, according to a survey from the Rock Center for Corporate Governance. authors: - name: Kara Brandeisky url: https://money.com/author/kara-brandeisky/ at_money_since: 2014 articles: 76 covers: - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://x.com/karabrandeisky former_staff: true published: '2016-02-05T16:09:01.000Z' modified: '2016-02-05T16:09:01.000Z' section: Business tags: - 1% - CEO pay - salaries word_count: 263 canonical: https://money.com/average-ceo-salary-survey/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![160205_ca_ceosalary](https://img.money.com/2016/02/160205_ca_ceosalary.jpg) Almost three in four Americans believe CEOs are overpaid. Yet at the same time, many vastly underestimate just how much CEOs make, according to a new survey from the [Rock Center for Corporate Governance](http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/sites/gsb/files/publication-pdf/cgri-survey-2016-americans-ceo-pay.pdf) at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. When Americans were asked to guess how much the average CEO in the largest 500 U.S. companies earns every year, the median guess was $1 million. (The *average* guess, by contrast, was about $9.275 million, a figure inflated by people who gave very high estimates.) The real answer? The median reported compensation for CEOs of the largest 500 companies in the U.S. is $10.3 million. The average is $12.2 million. There was a strong correlation between how much a respondent earned personally and their guesses for CEO compensation. The higher the respondents earnings, the more they thought the average CEO earned. People who made less than $20,000 a year typically thought that CEOs pull in just $500,000 a year (their median guess). People who made between $50,000 and $60,000 thought CEOs made $1 million. And people who made more than $150,000 a year thought CEOs made $5 million—closer to the truth, but still only about halfway there. Altogether, 74% of respondents said CEOs are not "paid the correct amount relative to the average worker." Democrats and independents were more likely than Republicans to feel this way, but even 61% of Republicans agreed with the sentiment. Seven in 10 respondents also agreed that "CEO compensation at the largest companies in the U.S. is a problem," including 78% of Democrats and 54% of Republicans. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/average-ceo-salary-survey/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Business", "item": "https://money.com/business/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Leadership", "item": "https://money.com/leadership/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Most Americans Can't Guess the Average CEO's Salary. Can You?" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/average-ceo-salary-survey/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/average-ceo-salary-survey/", "name": "Most Americans Can't Guess the Average CEO's Salary. Can You?", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2016-02-05T16:09:01.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/average-ceo-salary-survey/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/average-ceo-salary-survey/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2016-02-05T16:09:01.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Most Americans Can't Guess the Average CEO's Salary. Can You?", "articleSection": "Business", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/02/160205_ca_ceosalary.jpg", "width": 2100, "height": 1395, "caption": "160205_ca_ceosalary" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Kara Brandeisky", "url": "https://money.com/author/kara-brandeisky/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/kara-brandeisky/#author", "image": "https://img.money.com/2015/01/150107_bio_author_brandeisky_011.jpg?quality=85&w=190&h=190&crop=1", "email": "kara.brandeisky@moneymail.com", "sameAs": [ "https://x.com/karabrandeisky" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2016-02-05T16:09:01.000Z", "description": "The typical guess for CEO salaries is off by a factor of more than 10, according to a survey from the Rock Center for Corporate Governance.", "abstract": "The typical guess for CEO salaries is off by a factor of more than 10, according to a survey from the Rock Center for Corporate Governance.", "@id": "https://money.com/average-ceo-salary-survey/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2016-02-05T16:09:01.000Z", "wordCount": 263, "keywords": [ "1%", "CEO pay", "salaries" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Business", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Leadership", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership" ] } ] } ] } ```