- A examine by the AFL-CIO finds CEOs within the S&P 500 made 285 instances greater than their workers final 12 months. The biggest pay disparity was at Starbucks, the place CEO Brian Niccol made 6,666 instances as a lot because the median employee. As CEOs noticed 7% raises, the typical employee’s paycheck went up simply 3%.
It’s a great time to be a CEO. A brand new examine by the AFL-CIO discovered the typical company chief noticed their compensation enhance by $1.24 million final 12 months. On common, the federation of unions says, CEOs on the nation’s largest corporations made 285 instances what the typical employee did. A 12 months in the past, that ratio was 268:1.
“The median worker would have needed to begin working in 1740 to earn what the typical CEO obtained in 2024,” the group wrote in its 2025 Govt Paywatch examine.
CEO pay at S&P 500 corporations elevated 7% in 2024 over the prior 12 months, with the typical S&P 500 chief incomes $18.9 million, the very best quantity on document. (The earlier excessive was set in 2021, coming in at $18.3 million.) Prior to now decade, CEOs within the S&P 500 have seen their salaries go up by a mean of $6.5 million. Staff final 12 months noticed a mean 3% elevate, the group says.
Amongst S&P 500 corporations, the most important disparity between CEO and median employee pay was at Starbucks. Whereas the typical employee took house $14,674, in response to the examine, CEO Brian Niccol obtained $97.8 million in whole compensation. That works out to six,666 instances greater than employees and comes because the coffee-shop workers search to type a union.
Axon Enterprise CEO Patrick Smith topped the pay listing general, although, with the CEO of the Taser producer receiving compensation of $164.5 million in 2024 – a ratio of 801:1.
The report highlighted the Trump tax lower bundle in its report, noting that the typical CEO would obtain a tax lower of practically $490,000 as a result of extension of Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Staff will see their tax invoice go down a mean of $765.