Top CEO pay equals 3,489 years for typical worker

(AP) WASHINGTON - David Simon of Simon Property received a pay package worth more than $137 million for last year, and the typical CEO took home $9.6 million, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

Here are some ways to think about just how much money those salaries represent.

Simon's $137 million is almost entirely in stock awards that could eventually be worth $132 million. The company said it wanted to make sure Simon wasn't lured to another company.

HOW LONG IT TAKES OTHERS TO MAKE THAT MUCH: A minimum wage worker - paid $7.25 per hour, as some workers at Simon malls are - would have to work one month shy of 9,096 years to make what Simon made last year. A person making the national median salary, $39,312 by AP calculations, would have to work 3,489 years.

BY THE HOUR: Assuming Simon worked a 60-hour week, his pay was $43,963.64 per hour, or $732.73 per minute. To put that in perspective, the minimum-wage worker would have to labor for nearly three years to make what Simon earns in an hour. The average U.S. worker makes slightly less in one year than Simon makes in an hour.

COMPARED WITH AMERICA'S CEO: Simon makes about 342 times the $400,000 annual salary of President Barack Obama. In fact, if you add the salaries of Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, the Cabinet, the Supreme Court justices, all the members of the Senate and House of Representatives and all 50 governors, it is less than $110 million, so Simon makes well more than government's top 600 leaders. In the past 100 years, U.S. taxpayers have paid a total of $80.6 million, adjusted for inflation, to presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Obama.

The median CEO salary of $9.587 million:

HOW LONG IT TAKES OTHERS TO MAKE THAT MUCH: A minimum wage worker would have to work 636 years to make that much. A person making the national average salary would have to work 244 years to make the median CEO salary.

BY THE HOUR: If you assume the CEO works a 60-hour week, the pay comes to $3,072.84 per hour, or $51.21 per minute. To put that in perspective, the minimum wage worker would have to labor more than 10 weeks to make what the median CEO earns in an hour. It would take the average U.S. worker nearly a month to make what the average CEO makes in an hour.

COMPARED WITH AMERICA'S CEO: The CEO who made the median salary took in 12 times the total $789,674 in gross income that President Obama reported last year. But it is less than half the $20.9 million in income that presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney reported in his tax filing.

10 highest-paid CEOs

The 10 highest-paid CEOs for 2011, according to an Associated Press analysis of Standard & Poor's 500 companies. The analysis includes companies that had the same CEO for all of 2010 and 2011 and that filed proxy statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission between Jan. 1 and April 30.

They are based on the AP's compensation formula, which adds up salary, perks, bonuses, preferential interest rates on pay set aside for later, and company estimates for the value of stock options and stock awards on the day they were granted last year.

1. David Simon, Simon Property Group, $137.2 million, up 458 percent

2. Leslie Moonves, CBS, $68.4 million, up 20 percent

3. David M. Zaslav, Discovery Communications, $52.4 million, up 23 percent

4. Sanjay K. Jha, Motorola Mobility, $47.2 million, up 262 percent

5. Philippe P. Dauman, Viacom, $43.1 million, down 49 percent

6. David M. Cote, Honeywell International, $35.7 million, up 135 percent

7. Robert A. Iger, Walt Disney, $31.4 million, up 12 percent

8. Clarence P. Cazalot Jr., Marathon Oil, $29.9 million, up 239 percent

9. John P. Daane, Altera, $29.6, million, up 278 percent

10. Alan Mulally, Ford Motor, $29.5 million, up 11 percent