What do the people at the top of U.S. Coal Mining companies earn? Here are some data from the 2010 U.S. Coal Mine Salaries, Wages and Benefits Survey recently published by CostMine. I have previously on this blog written about the salaries and the wages in the U.S. coal mine industry. This is the final article based on the CostMine survey of coal mines. Keep in mind they also have surveys on metal mines and on income at both U.S. and Canadian mines.
Income to the Income to coal mine executives comes by way of the following—and to give you some idea of how much each contributes to the total take-home income, I give below the maximum paid to the Chairman of some profitable U.S. coal company (all numbers are in $1,000 for one year):
- Annual Salary = 1,075
- Change in Pension Value and Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Earnings = 573
- Option Awards =2,398
- Stock Awards = 5,552
- Non-equity Incentive Plan Compensation = 11,500
- Other = 609
That is correct. If you add it all up, some luck chairman took home nearly $20 million last year. The lowest paid of the coal company chairmen took home a mere $5 million. The average take-home by the average U.S. coal mine company chairman was $15 million. Not a lot when you consider what Wall Street crooks and bankers take home. No wonder they do not support a tax hike for the rich.
Here are the average annual salaries for the other executives in U.S. coal mine companies (again in $1,000)
- CEO = 553
- President = 489
- Vice President = 326
- CFO = 369
- COO = 430
Before you start to pity these lads their low salaries, here are the bonuses they received – I quote the average:
- CEO = 2,300
- President = 637
- Vice President = 339
- CFO = 328
- COO = 513
Can you just imagine coming home at Christmas with a half-million dollar bonus check? I cannot, I confess, but I like to dream. What would I do with all that money? Maybe go out and buy a red Mini. But that would use up only ten percent or less. Maybe a year’s supply of good Guatemalan rum, new carpets in the hall, and then my desires sort of run blank. Maybe that is why I will never take home so big a bonus—I simply do not have the imagination to make or spend that amount over Christmas.
These guys must know how to spend. I am not even sure what “all other compensation” is. Maybe private planes, golf club memberships, opera tickets, who knows. But they get these perks. Here are some numbers—this time maximum/average/minimum by job description:
- CEO = 5,134/563/15
- President = 775/125/15
- Vice President = 4,427/1,149/209
- CFO = 1,510/259/17
- COO = 3,715/1,991/350
I am not sure why presidents and CFO are so badly done by. Maybe they actually do not do much around the office, hence get fewer perks. Still $15,000 would more than pay for me to fly to every opera in the U.S.A. that I would like to see in any one year.
And with that irrelevant thought, I leave you to contemplate the problems of executives.
[...] 2010 U.S. Coal Mine Executive Compensation [...]