I hate being advertised to.

I love this shoot.

That's incredible.

Not everyone is suffering in this economy. According to a new study by the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, the CEOs of financial firms made an average of $13.8 million last year. The same report also found that the top five executives at 20 financial institutions—all of which received federal bailout money—took home combined pay packages of $3.2 billion over the last three years. Worse yet, the pay ratio between CEOs and employees of the companies that make up the Standard & Poor's 500 is now 319 to 1.

Attempts to rein in CEO salaries have so far been futile, says Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project and author of the group's report, America's Bailout Barons. NEWSWEEK's Nancy Cook spoke to Anderson about the growing wage gap, the problem of CEO pay, the Obama administration’s new pay czar, and whether the government should regulate executive salaries. Excerpts:

In your study, America's Bailout Barons, what were the most egregious examples of executive compensation this year?
I think the most shocking thing was looking at how executives could use the financial crisis as a springboard to an even bigger windfall this year. Rather than hand out bonuses, many companies gave out new stock options. For example, the stock options of American Express's CEO increased by $18 million, but the stock price of the company was about half since the economic crash. I think this shows that executives come out on top no matter what.

President Obama recently appointed a pay czar to rein in executive pay. In your experience, will big paychecks be something the czar can control?
It's too early to tell, but there's an impression that the pay czar has more power than he actually does. Right now he's only looking at the pay packages for seven companies that received bailout money, and he's not looking at pay packages of less than $500,000. That's a far cry from President Obama's speech earlier this year when he proposed a cap of $500,000 on executive compensation. Now that cap has turned into the floor.

There's also a lot of talk about how the pay czar doesn't have the power to break contracts. But I just hope he knows how to play hardball. There are lots of things the government could do to get these companies to negotiate. They could say, "Unless you renegotiate this contract, you can forget about getting tax breaks or other forms of corporate welfare."

Forget about the CEOs. What about the midlevel executives or the traders? How does their pay compare?
The average Wall Street employee got an end-of-the-year bonus of about $112,000, and this is the worst financial year that we've ever seen in about 80 years. That bonus is about twice the starting salary of the people here in Washington, who are responsible for regulating Wall Street. This undermines the regulatory system and can breed conflict of interest. It's like asking the regulators if they really want to crack down on a company they may want to work for someday.

Beautifully done Hillman.

Welcome

Help Portrait is a movement of photographers who are using their time, equipment and expertise to give back to those who are less fortunate this holiday season.

In brief, here are the details:

Date: December 12, 2009

Where: Your city

Want to know more? Click the right arrow …

Great movement. Getcha' photo taken.