Median CEO pay exceeded absurdist levels, rising above $10 million in 2013. (Phillip Taylor/Flickr)

Continuing an American tradition of paying executives disproportionately more than their workers, median CEO pay rose to $10.5 million in 2013, according to the Associated Press.

The eight figure sum is an 8.8 increase from median pay for CEOs in 2012, when executives earned a modest $9.6 million. According to the pay study, the collaborative result of both the AP and Equilar, CEOs now earn nearly 257 times more than the average worker.

But Dan Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, told the AP that the proletariat just doesn't understand the value of a great CEO.

"If you have a good CEO at a company, the wealth he might generate for shareholders could be in the billions," Mitchell said. "It might be worth paying these guys millions for doing this type of work."

So it turns out that it might be worth paying CEOs millions for doing the kind of work underemployed youths can only dream about in their dank studio apartments financed by endless student loan debt and littered with used Keurig cups.

Put that coffee down, proles. Coffee is for closers.

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