Just how overpaid is that overpaid CEO?

Now you can find out. The AFL-CIO’s Executive Paywatch website will probably get bookmarked by a lot of people.

Out of curiosity, the first company I clicked was Jack in the Box. CEO Linda Lang hauled more than $6 mil last year per AFL-CIO accounting methods. That’s a lot of Jumbo Jacks. For making baking soda, for doorknob’s sake, Church & Dwight (Arm & Hammer folks) CEO James Craigie scooped up nearly $4 mil. And, it would appear that Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope probably won’t wring enough out of his branding deal with Clorox. Its CEO, Donald Knauss, raked in more than $12 mil by AFL-CIO accounting.

Plus, the website has this fun little “shopping cart” button beneath each CEO’s pay. For example, for Knauss, on his salary, he could buy:

• Health insurance for 2,867 uninsured workers.
• Day care for one year for 1,861 working mothers.

Enough said, eh? Of course, I tried looking up some folks, like Dean Singleton at MediaNews, then remembered they run privately held companies.

Oh, well, at least for publicly traded companies, this is a great tool.