CEOs continue to rake in the cash

If your dwindling paycheck has you feeling a bit gloomy these days as you struggle to make ends meet, you can always take comfort in knowing that some people are still doing well. Very well indeed. So who's in this group of outliers? Top executives at public companies. Later this week, The Corporate Library, an independent research group that focuses on executive compensation and corporate governance issues, will be shining a light on CEO compensation based on an extensive survey of over 3,300 publicly traded companies. But we have the goods now.

In 2009, CEO base salaries increased an average of 4.5 percent. That's on top of the 4 percent increase in 2008. Indeed, 75 percent of CEOs saw their base salaries go up in 2009. But total compensation, which includes such things as stock options, restricted stock and most typically, perks, went down just over 6 percent last year. Just over half of all CEOs saw their total compensation drop in 2009. The Corporate Library plans to make its findings available in both a webinar and a research report.