CEOs earn 614 times more than workers at US’s 100 lowest-paying corporations
Analysis by Institute for Policy Studies found that between 2019 and 2025, CEO compensation increased 41.4% The average CEO of the US’s 100 largest, lowest-paying corporations earned 614 times more than their average worker last year, according to an analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). IPS’s latest executive excess report analyzed compensation at the 100 S&P 500 corporations with…
An analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies found that between 2019 and 2025, the CEOs of the 100 US corporations with the lowest median worker pay earned 614 times more than their average employee. The average CEO of these firms saw compensation rise by 41.4%, while worker pay increased by only 20.7% over the same period. This disparity widened further when accounting for inflation, which rose by 25.9% compared to worker pay increases. Between 2019 and 2025, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio in these low-wage firms increased by 8.4%.
The average CEO at these low-wage 100 corporations earned $17.5 million in 2025, whereas the median worker pay stood at $36,571. The wealth of at least 36 billionaires is connected to these corporations, including prominent figures like the Waltons from Walmart, Jeff Bezos from Amazon, and the Garcia family from Carvana.
Sarah Anderson, lead author of the report and director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, emphasized the societal impact of such extreme pay gaps, stating that these CEOs seem to inhabit a separate economic reality from their employees. Anderson highlighted the challenges faced by low-wage workers, who often rely on government assistance programs like Medicaid and SNAP (food benefits) and have been affected by threats of immigration enforcement.
During this period, these corporations spent a combined $718 billion on stock buybacks, an increase from $105 billion in 2024. Walmart, the largest spender among the 100 firms, allocated $8.1 billion in stock buybacks, equivalent to a $3,851 bonus for each of its 2.1 million workers. In 2025, Walmart's CEO, Doug McMillan, received $29.2 million in compensation, which was 958 times more than the median worker pay at the company.
The report proposes several policy solutions to address excessive executive pay, such as a tax increase on corporations with CEO-to-worker pay ratios exceeding 50 times, raising taxes on stock buybacks, and utilizing government contracts and subsidies to prevent contractors from engaging in stock buybacks. Walmart declined to comment on the report.
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