It's common for top healthcare executives to obtain some sort of graduate education. But where will that degree translate to dollars? 

The rich may be getting poorer, but Americans' pay expectations are only gaining steam. 

A number of healthcare and pharmaceutical company CEOs are the highest earners among organizations in the Standard & Poor's 500 index, according to data from research firm Equilar provided to Becker's on Aug. 25.

On Aug. 11, Illinois became the ninth state to pass a pay transparency law. 

Supply and demand economics are driving a significant rise in physician salaries, according to a report from AMN Healthcare's Physician Solutions division.

Big pay hikes that came with job changes in recent years are beginning to flatten or fall across many industries — a signal for healthcare employers that the bidding wars for talent spanning industries are cooling down.

The average income for physician assistants in cardiothoracic and vascular surgery is the highest among specialties tracked in the "2022 Statistical Profile of Board Certified PAs by Specialty," a report on 24 specialties and primary care published by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants.

Shorter contracts, noncompete agreements and increased emphasis on value-based components are among the shifts occurring in physician contracts as hospitals and medical groups build recruitment pipelines and offer incentives to retain physicians. 

A common scapegoat for the gender wage gap now has numeric value: U.S. women would collectively make an additional $627 billion per year if paid for their caregiving work. 

Average starting salaries increased in 12 specialties tracked in AMN Healthcare's "2023 Review of Physician and Advanced Practitioner Recruiting Incentives" for which there were year-over-year comparisons.

Orthopedic surgeons have the highest base salaries in 2023 among the most-recruited physician specialties and advanced practice providers, according to a report published Aug. 14 by AMN Healthcare.

Pharmaceutical S&P 500 companies — including major vaccine manufacturers like Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — have smaller CEO-to-worker pay gaps than many other healthcare companies. 

At Align Technology — the San Jose, Calif.-based orthodontics manufacturer responsible for Invisalign — the CEO makes 1,026 times what the median worker brings in. 

America's top-earning physicians practice in some unexpected pockets of the country. 

The verdict is in: Workers prefer money, not pens, when they serve a health system for five years. But if they are going to receive an anniversary check, there are certain dollar amounts that remain "insulting[ly]" low, according to a popular post on Reddit.

Generation Z has earned a reputation as work-averse, namely due to trends they circulate on TikTok. 

The University of California has released 2022 wage data for every employee on its payroll, including the CEOs of its six highly ranked academic health centers.

Physicians make a lot of money, according to an Aug. 4 article in The Washington Post. Physicians know this, according to social media — and they believe the scrutiny of their paychecks is misguided. 

CEOs outearn the average worker in every state, but the gap is wider in some places than others. 

Standard annual pay raises of years past will no longer suffice as workers expect higher pay raises from their employers next year, Fortune reported Aug. 7, citing data from Payscale's Salary Budget Survey.