CEOs earn 614 times more than workers at US’s 100 lowest-paying corporations

Between 2019 and 2025, the CEOs of the 100 U.S. corporations with the lowest median worker pay saw their compensation skyrocket by 41.4%, according to a new analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). This rise was twice as fast as the 20.7% increase in median worker pay at these firms during the same period, and it came despite inflation surging by 25.9% over the same timeframe. As a result, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio at these low-wage corporations climbed by 8.4% between 2019 and 2025.

The IPS report revealed that the average CEO at these 100 firms earned a staggering $17.5 million in 2025, while the median worker took home just $36,571. This meant that CEOs were paid 614 times more than their average employees. The analysis also found that at least 36 billionaires have ties to these low-wage corporations, including prominent figures like Walmart Walton family members, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and his wife Mackenzie Scott, and Carvana co-founders Ernie Garcia II and Ernie Garcia III.

IPS lead author Sarah Anderson, who directs the Global Economy Project at the Institute, emphasized the societal implications of such extreme wealth disparities. "It's really a big problem for society," she stated. "These CEOs seem to be living on a different economic planet than the one their employees are living on, making it hard for them to comprehend the struggles of having to put food on the table or even worrying about being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)."

The report highlighted that low-wage corporations have a combined lobbying force of 1,282 registered federal lobbyists and that many of these companies failed to denounce aggressive immigration enforcement actions affecting their workforce. Anderson added, "Low-wage workers are now facing the biggest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP (food benefits) in history. Many of the employees at these companies rely on those programs, and yet many of them have been terrorized and detained by ICE agents."

Stock buybacks among these firms increased to $108.6 billion in 2025 from $105 billion in 2024, with Walmart leading the pack at $8.1 billion, equivalent to a $3,851 bonus for each of its 2.1 million workers. Walmart's Doug McMillan, who stepped down as CEO in January 2026, earned $29.2 million in 2025, which was 958 times more than the median worker pay at Walmart.

The IPS report suggests several policy solutions to address excessive executive pay, such as a tax hike on corporations that pay CEOs more than 50 times what they pay their median employees, increasing stock buyback taxes, and using government contracts and subsidies to prevent contractors from engaging in stock buybacks.