Few things can unite Australians like CEO salaries. Opinion polls have found about 80 per cent of us think corporate bosses are paid too much.

Credit: Simon Letch

The latest figures on executive remuneration, for 2023-24, show Victor Herrero of jewellery retailer Lovisa Holdings topped the list for CEOs living in Australia. He took home just under $40 million, which means in less than one day Herrero had already banked more money than the average wage earner would take home in the whole year.

While we all know CEOs get fat packets, the truth is we don’t realise just how fat they have become.

A new study co-authored by Melbourne University academic Christopher Hoy highlights the gulf between public perceptions of executive pay and the reality.

The researchers used global CEO pay data from Bloomberg to calculate how the salaries of chief executive officers compared with typical workers. They discovered the average CEO of a company listed on the Australian stock exchange earned more than 100 times the pay of the average full-timer.

Beliefs about CEO salaries were then tested with a survey. It turns out people were way off the mark saying they earned just seven times as much as the average full-timer. When asked how much CEO should earn, respondents report only three times as much.

“CEOs are clearly getting paid far beyond what people think is socially acceptable, particularly for the current rates of........

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