According to the Associated Press, the economy is certainly working for some.

CEO pay was up 6 percent last year, according to an analysis by the Associated Press, marking the second year in a row of increases for the 1%.

The “head of a typical public company made $9.6 million in 2011,” reported the AP, but the average pay for for a US worker was around $39,300. While that was up 1 percent from the year before, it wasn’t enough to keep up with inflation, so the average American effectively took home less than in 2010.

The typical American worker “would have to labor for 244 years to make what the typical boss of a big public company makes in one,” said the report.

Still, there’s a reason to celebrate: CEO pay is being tied more often to company performance, largely because “shareholders found their voice,” according to Stephen Davis, a shareholder expert at Yale University.

“I think the boards were more easily shamed than we thought they were.”

The AP goes on to explain that the shift was also caused by the Dodd-Frank law, which was “passed in the wake of the financial crisis, [and] overhauled how banks and other public companies are regulated.”

At the start of last year, the legislation—which high-profile conservative candidates like Mitt Romney have vowed to repeal—required public companies “to let shareholders vote on whether they approve of the top executives’ pay packages.”