US CEOs Earn 614 Times More Than Workers, Report Finds

Published: 27 August 2026. The English Chronicle Desk. The English Chronicle Online

Chief executives at some of America’s largest low-paying corporations earned an average of 614 times more than their workers in 2025, highlighting a widening gap between executive compensation and ordinary employee pay, according to a new analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies.

The report examined executive compensation and worker wages at the 100 S&P 500 companies with the lowest median worker pay. Its findings suggest that the gap has expanded substantially since 2019, with CEO compensation rising considerably faster than the earnings of the employees whose work supports those businesses.

According to the analysis, the average chief executive at the 100 companies received $17.5m in compensation in 2025. By comparison, the median worker at those companies earned $36,571.

The resulting pay ratio was 614 to one.

The figures offer a snapshot of the broader debate over corporate inequality in the United States, where executive compensation has increasingly become a subject of political scrutiny. Supporters of high CEO salaries often argue that companies must pay competitive rates to attract experienced leaders, while critics say the scale of executive rewards has become disconnected from the economic realities facing ordinary workers.

The IPS report found that the divergence has grown considerably over recent years.

Between 2019 and 2025, CEO compensation at the 100 companies increased by 41.4%, without adjusting for inflation. Median worker pay increased by only 20.7% over the same period.

Inflation itself rose by 25.9%, meaning that the typical worker’s nominal pay increase failed to keep pace with the overall increase in consumer prices.

As a result, workers at these corporations experienced a significant decline in their purchasing power relative to the growth in compensation received by their chief executives.

The CEO-to-worker pay ratio increased by 8.4% between 2019 and 2025, according to the report.

Sarah Anderson, lead author of the study and director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, said the scale of the disparity represented a major social problem.

She argued that executives receiving millions of dollars could become increasingly detached from the financial pressures experienced by employees earning comparatively modest wages.

The report’s findings also connect executive compensation with broader questions about the economic conditions facing low-paid workers.

Many of the companies examined employ large numbers of people in retail, logistics, hospitality, food services and other sectors where wages are comparatively low. Some workers depend on government programmes such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as SNAP, to help meet basic household expenses.

Anderson criticised corporate leaders for what she described as insufficient attention to the challenges facing their employees.

The report also examined the relationship between corporate political influence and worker welfare. Collectively, the 100 companies employed 1,282 registered federal lobbyists, according to the analysis.

The researchers argued that companies with large low-wage workforces have significant influence in Washington and therefore have an important role in debates over labour, taxation and social policy.

The report particularly criticised the response of some companies to increased immigration enforcement.

It said many of the corporations had not publicly opposed aggressive immigration enforcement actions affecting their workers or occurring on company property.

Anderson argued that this was especially significant because many employees at low-paying corporations could be affected by changes to immigration policy and enforcement.

The report therefore places executive pay within a much wider discussion about corporate responsibility, government policy and the treatment of workers.

Another major focus of the analysis was corporate stock buybacks.

The 100 companies spent $108.6bn on stock repurchases in 2025, up from $105bn the previous year. Over the six-year period from 2019 through 2025, the companies collectively spent $718bn buying back their own shares.

Stock buybacks allow companies to return capital to shareholders and can increase earnings per share by reducing the number of shares outstanding.

Supporters argue that buybacks are a legitimate way for companies to return excess capital to investors. Critics, however, contend that corporations sometimes prioritise repurchases over higher wages, investment in employees or long-term business development.

The IPS report argues that the scale of buybacks should therefore be considered alongside executive compensation and worker pay.

Walmart provides one of the report’s most striking examples.

The retail giant spent approximately $8.1bn on stock buybacks in 2025, according to the analysis. The report calculated that the same amount would have represented roughly $3,851 for each of Walmart’s approximately 2.1 million workers.

Walmart’s former chief executive Doug McMillon, who stepped down in January 2026, received $29.2m in compensation for 2025.

The report calculated that this was 958 times the company’s median worker pay of $30,520.

The figures illustrate how differences in compensation can become particularly pronounced at companies employing hundreds of thousands or millions of people.

While a CEO’s responsibilities can be considerably greater than those of individual employees, critics of executive pay argue that compensation at such extreme levels cannot be justified solely by differences in responsibility or performance.

The debate also extends to the way executive compensation is structured.

CEO packages can include salaries, bonuses, stock awards, options and other forms of long-term incentives. When a company’s share price increases, the value of stock-based compensation can rise substantially, sometimes producing compensation totals far above an executive’s basic salary.

This structure can create a close relationship between executive wealth and shareholder returns.

The IPS report argues that government policy should be used to discourage what it considers excessive executive compensation.

Among the measures it proposes is a higher corporate tax burden for companies that pay their CEOs more than 50 times the median compensation of their employees.

The report also calls for higher taxes on stock buybacks.

Another recommendation involves government contracts and subsidies. Researchers argue that public money should come with conditions preventing companies that receive government assistance from using stock buybacks in ways that prioritise shareholders while workers receive comparatively low compensation.

Such proposals are likely to face opposition from businesses and some policymakers who argue that government should not dictate how private companies structure executive pay or allocate corporate capital.

The debate over CEO compensation has nevertheless gained increasing prominence as concerns about inequality, affordability and wage growth remain central to American economic policy.

For workers, the issue is not simply the size of an executive’s compensation package but the broader question of how economic gains are distributed within a company.

When executive compensation rises twice as quickly as worker pay, critics argue, it becomes harder to claim that corporate prosperity is being broadly shared.

The IPS report does not suggest that every CEO at a low-paying corporation receives identical compensation or that all companies operate in the same way. Instead, its analysis focuses specifically on the 100 S&P 500 corporations with the lowest median worker pay, making the findings particularly relevant to industries where large workforces coexist with comparatively low wages.

The study also highlights the role of inflation.

Although median worker pay increased by 20.7% between 2019 and 2025, prices increased by 25.9%. This means that workers experienced weaker real wage growth during a period in which executive compensation increased by more than 40%.

The disparity is therefore not simply a matter of executives receiving larger raises. It reflects different trajectories in economic security, purchasing power and wealth accumulation.

The report’s findings are likely to add to pressure on companies to reconsider their approaches to compensation and capital allocation.

For policymakers, the challenge is determining how far taxation and government contracting rules should go in influencing private-sector pay structures.

For businesses, the debate raises questions about whether large gaps between executives and employees could affect morale, recruitment, retention and public trust.

And for workers, the central concern remains whether productivity and corporate growth translate into meaningful improvements in household incomes.

The figures presented by the Institute for Policy Studies provide another indication of the scale of America’s executive-pay divide. With the average CEO at the 100 companies earning $17.5m compared with median worker pay of $36,571, the gap remains enormous.

As policymakers and companies continue to debate wages, taxation and corporate responsibility, the question is increasingly difficult to avoid: how much of the wealth generated by America’s largest corporations should reach the people who perform the work that keeps them operating?

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