In case you missed it, The New York Times published two articles last weekend that captured the dramatic disparity between workers’ wages and executive pay at large corporations across the country. While median working family incomes fell last year , median CEO and executive compensation skyrocketed and lucrative executive retirement packages continued to expand. These lucrative plans, known as “Golden Parachutes,” have increased despite years of public outcry as companies have chipped away at workers’ pensions and retirement plans. At the same time, a coalition of CEOs and corporations are advocating cuts  to earned Social Security and Medicare benefits as they rake in lavish retirement and bonus packages.

The New York Times writes:

According to an updated analysis, the top 200 chief executives at public companies with at least $1 billion in revenue actually got a big raise last year, over all.  The research …found that the median (CEO) 2012 pay package came in at $15.1 million—a leap of 16 percent from 2011. So much for the idea that shareholders were finally getting through to corporate boards on the topic of reining in pay.

That means CEOs of S&P 500 Index companies made 354 times the average wage of rank-and-file workers in 2012. This stark contrast, which is tracked by AFL-CIO’s Executive Pay Watch , provides a window into America’s growing income inequality and CEO-to-worker pay gap. 

To learn more about the history of inequality in the United States, visit the Economic Policy Institute’s new interactive website, www.inequality.is .