S&P 500 CEO makes 200 times the money the median worker does

Earlier this month, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced approval of rule requiring companies, starting in 2017, to reveal the difference between the chief executives' compensation and the median-compensated worker in terms of multiples.

Many in Corporate America have hated the concept since its inclusion for the first time in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law back in 2010. It includes unnecessary costs and brings logistical headache, especially for companies with large global workforces.

Glassdoor released rankings Tuesday using compensation data reported by employees. Glassdoor gave ranks to as many companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index as it could by the ratio of CEO pay to the median salary survey reported to Glassdoor by employees.

The analysis showed the CEO's 2014 compensation in 26 companies was more than 500 times of their median worker. As far as the average ratio is concerned, it was 204 times median employee pay. The figure was way less than past average ratios calculated by the AFL-CIO or the Economic Policy Institute. The ratios then topped 300 times median worker pay and calculations were derived after using worker pay data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Andrew Chamberlain, Glassdoor's chief economist, said, "Many people care about fairness. Our view is transparency helps us get the facts straight so we can have a fair debate about CEO compensation".

Discovery Communications' David Zaslav grabbed the top spot in the list with 2014 compensation of $156 million, meaning 1,951 times the median reported worker pay at Discovery of $80,000.