$253,088 monthly in retirement? That's what's coming for some CEOs

One hundred U.S. CEOs have company retirement funds collectively worth $4.7 billion, a total equal to the retirement savings of the 41% of U.S. families with the smallest reserves for their golden years, according to a new report. 

The gap between CEO retirement packages and the benefits of ordinary Americans is wide and could expand if President-elect Donald Trump's tax reforms are enacted, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, a research center that studies executive compensation.

The nest eggs of those chief executives are large enough to generate an average $253,088 in monthly retirement payments for the rest of their lives, the report said. The 100 CEOs studied have retirement funds equal to the entire retirement savings of 44% of white working class households, 59% of African-American families, 75% of Latino families and 44% of female-headed households, the Institute found. 

If Trump's general plan to cut the U.S. top marginal tax rate from the current 39.6% to 33%, Fortune 500 company CEOs would save an estimated $196 million in what they'd otherwise owe in taxes on any tax-deferred funds they withdraw, the report, released Thursday, calculated.

"White working class families, families of color, and female-headed households share common worries about whether they'll be able to afford to retire and whether their golden years will be tarnished by financial stress," said the report, entitled A Tale of Two Retirements. "Our country's real retirement divide is between those at the top of corporate America and nearly all the rest of us."

Retirement benefit gap: CEOs have platinum pension packages

The Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs from leading U.S. corporations, addressed executive compensation issues in a 2007 commentary. It said the benefits should be decided by independent directors, be "closely aligned with the long-term interests of shareholders and with corporate goals and strategies" and "include significant performance-based criteria." 

The Institute for Policy Studies report takes a broader societal view, focusing on increasing economic inequality in the U.S. Highlights include compensation for ten CEOs with the largest retirement funds. Glenn Renwick, who retired this year as CEO of the Progressive group of insurance companies, topped the list with more than $194 million in retirement assets, the report showed.

Progressive's 2016 proxy report to shareholders said compensation awards to Renwick and other executive officers "were weighted heavily towards performance-based annual cash bonuses and, generally, longer-term equity awards," a system the company said supports "a strong pay-for-performance linkage" and "appropriately align(s) the interests of our named executive officers with those of our shareholders."

However, the retirement gap doesn't necessarily stem from top executives working harder or making wiser investments than others, the report said. Instead, it  characterized the chasm as "one more example of rule-rigging in favor of the 1%" who top of the U.S. economic ladder:

• Ordinary workers face government caps on the amount of pre-tax income they can channel to tax-deferred retirement plans, such as 401(k) accounts. But most Fortune 500 firms create unlimited tax-deferred compensation accounts for their top executives.
• CEO compensation is often linked to a company's stock value, so the executives have an incentive to boost the firm's bottom line. Reaching that goal may include cutting employee retirement benefits.
• The U.S. tax code allows firms to deduct unlimited amounts of executive compensation from their corporate taxes if the benefits are "performance based."

The report calls for eliminating tax-deferred compensation plans for corporate executives, canceling tax breaks for companies that increase employee retirement insecurity and scrapping the provision that allows unlimited corporate tax deductions for executive pay.

Additionally, the report recommends requiring highly paid CEOs to pay more for their share of Social Security benefits, safeguarding public pensions and supporting the creation of universal state-run pension plans. 

Follow USA TODAY reporter Kevin McCoy on Twitter: @kmccoynyc