In the wake of Friday's report that the economy lost 63,000 jobs last month, you can expect to hear lots of discussion in the next few weeks about which occupations are the most "recession-proof." Healthcare and education professionals usually top the list, but I would add another safe haven: corporate CEO.

Of course, executives have always raked in the dough. But, as an ongoing congressional investigation is demonstrating, what's troubling today is how little bearing a CEO's performance has on his compensation.

Take Countrywide Financial. The mammoth mortgage lending company was riding high in recent years, buoyed by cheap money and a housing boom. But when the subprime crisis broke last summer, Countrywide lost $1.6 billion in the second half of 2007, and its market value dropped an eye-popping 80 percent. In January, with Countrywide near bankruptcy, Bank of America swooped in and bought it for $4 billion.

It would seem to be a less than stellar record for Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo. Yet, according to congressional investigators, while Countrywide was imploding, Mozilo was paid $1.9 million in salary and sold $121 million in stock. He was even awarded $20 million in stock based on his performance - the same performance that led to the end of Countrywide as an independent firm. (Imagine how much Mozilo would have received if the company's value had only dropped by, say, 50 percent.)

The congressional report, noting this case and others, observes with some understatement: "The financial benefits realized by the CEOs as the subprime mortgage crisis unfolded do not appear to have been aligned with the interests of the shareholders." Plain and simple, CEO pay is out of control. In 2006, the average pay for a Fortune 500 CEO was $15.2 million, up 38 percent from the previous year, according to Forbes magazine. In a recent survey, two-thirds of big business board members acknowledged they were finding it hard to control executive pay.

Funny thing, though - nobody is finding it hard to control the pay of regular workers. As The New York Times reported Sunday, most families made less in 2006 ($48,201) than they did in 1999 ($49,244), adjusted for inflation. "It now looks as if a full decade may pass before most Americans receive a raise," The Times said.

Somehow, though, the new vogue for thrifty payrolls never made its way to the top. In 1980, a CEO was paid 40 times as much as his average employee; today, he earns over 600 times as much.

Now, just because CEOs make a lot of money doesn't mean regular workers' wages have to decline - there's a lot of money to go around in corporate America. Still, there is evidence that the decoupling of pay and performance for CEOs is damaging to their companies and the broader economy.

A study in the Academy of Management Journal last year found that giving CEOs huge stock options leads them to "swing for the fences" - with shareholder money. Unfortunately, the study also found that "they strike out much more often than they hit home runs." For evidence, look no further than Mozilo, whose aggressive pursuit of subprime mortgages temporary inflated Countrywide's stock price but ended up leaving the company, and perhaps the whole economy, in the tank.

Aside from the economic impact of inflated CEO pay, it also violates the basic principles of capitalism. If an executive gets richly rewarded regardless of his actual merit, the game is rigged.

Corporate boards need to rein in executive pay and build a compensation system that actually reflects the job a CEO does managing his company. There's nothing wrong with making a lot of money. But they should have to earn it just like everybody else.

TED NESI is a Sun Chronicle staff writer. His e-mail is tnesi@thesunchronicle.com.