Thanks to the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, shareholders gained access to new information this year.

The big picture: Companies must now disclose the ratio of pay between the CEO and the company’s median employee. Not surprisingly, five of the top 10 worst CEOs overall are present in the list's top 10 companies with the highest ratio of CEO to median employee pay.

• Note: Mattel, whose CEO makes 4,987 times more than its median employee, said 78% of its employees work abroad — and mostly in manufacturing plants, where wages are far lower than in the U.S.

What they're saying: "If you look at the pay of top CEOs relative to workers, that ratio in the 1950s was 20 to 1, was about 30 to 1 by the late '70s, and by the mid-1990s it was 120 to 1," Robert Reich, who served as Labor Secretary for President Bill Clinton, said during Thursday's call with reporters. "When I was working in the White House that was a cause of real concern. That ratio seemed appalling to most people. Now it’s 300 to 1."

Go deeper: The most overpaid CEOs

Why it matters: U.S. demand for Treasuries has remained incredibly strong since late last year and in fact has increased as yields have fallen, meaning investors are being paid less to hold the debt.

Background: Since 2000, foreign buyers had been the main growing source of Treasury sales. That trend has reversed and American buyers, including banks, pension funds and households, have more than picked up the slack.

What to watch: That's unusual and the fact that yields remain near these particularly low levels (2.69% on the 10-year at press time) likely suggests investors are continuing to position for a downturn, despite the stock market's reversal.

• Deutsche Bank Chief International Economist Torsten Slok notes that foreigners sold a total of $91 billion of U.S. stocks and bonds in December, with around 85% of that being U.S. government debt.

Despite this significant upward pressure on Treasury yields during the stock market rout (because selling leads to lower prices, meaning yields should rise), benchmark 10-year yields fell from 3.20% in November to 2.60% in December.

• "This reveals how strong the domestic bid is from pension funds and banks for U.S. Treasuries at the moment," Slok said.

The group identified 100 such CEOs, a number of whom take home more than 1,000 times what the median employee at their firm does and have their pay packages challenged by investors.

"Overpaid CEOs underperform financially," Paul Herman, CEO of HIP Investors, who helped craft the list of worst CEOs, tells Axios.

• In fact, he says, the average "overpaid" CEO makes $11 million to $53 million more than the average CEO at an S&P 500 company.

Context: Clarke of Fleetcor Technologies is not overpaid because he makes more than $52 million a year. It's because he earns 1,517 times the average salary of a Fleetcor employee, has delivered unimpressive results for Fleetcor's stock holders and just 14% of shareholders voted to approve his pay.

Why it matters: CEO's growing demand for richer salaries are often leading them to value short-term gains over long-term results, prioritizing stock buybacks that temporarily pump up a company's stock price over long-term investments in employees and growth.

That's bad for the individual companies and for the country, advocates say.

"The crisis we're in today of inequality has a lot to do with what has been happening in executive suites."

The organization says large U.S.-based asset managers like BlackRock, Vanguard and StateStreet continually rubber stamp exorbitant executive pay packages opposed by individual investors, pension funds and more discerning European asset managers.

Northern Trust, which manages $1.1 trillion in assets, did not vote against any pay deals.

The numbers that matter: This has continued despite poor returns for investors, says Rosanna Landis-Weaver, As You Sow's program manager.

• "We found that the 10 companies we identified as having the most overpaid CEOs, in aggregate, underperformed the S&P 500 index by an incredible 10.5 percentage points and actually destroyed shareholder value, with a negative 5.7% financial return."
• "In analyzing almost 4 years of returns for these 10 companies we find that they lag the S&P 500 by 14.3 percentage points, posting an overall loss in value of over 11%."

Rounding out the top 10 companies with the most overpaid CEOs:

2. Oracle (which topped the list last year)

3. Broadcom

4. Mondelez International

5. Wynn Resorts

6. Walt Disney

7. TransDigm

8. AIG

9. Mattel

10. CSX

Go deeper:

• See the full list of 100 most overpaid CEOs
• The average S&P CEO makes 273 times more than its median employee
• Corporate CEOs took home more than you think