Female Execs Few, but They Out-Earn the Boys

America's top businesswomen are making top dollar, finds Bloomberg. Sixteen women heading companies in the S&P 500 Index averaged payouts of $14.2 million last year. That's 43% more than the male average. Carol Bartz of Yahoo and Irene Rosenfeld of Kraft led the way, pulling in $47.2 million and $26.3 million respectively. "The glass ceiling in corporate America has been shattered,” says one (male) CEO.

But, notes Bloomberg, there is another factor at play: competition. “These are the strongest, fittest and toughest who survive,” one pay expert says. These women have "had to negotiate all the way up the ladder.” And the trend doesn't hold across the board: American women working at least 35 hours a week in Q1 received just 79% of the wages earned by men. Click here to read about Obama's wage gap plan.
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