The chief executives of S&P 500 companies raked in an average of $18.3 million in total compensation last year, making 324 times more than their company’s median-paid workers while enjoying pay increases that well outpaced inflation, according to a new report from America’s largest labor union federation.
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), which represents 12.5 million workers, used the report to spotlight the yawning gap between those occupying America’s C-suites and the rank-and-file employees working in the warehouses, stores, restaurants and factories that keep the economy humming — a gap that’s likely been made worse by runaway inflation. In fact, the value of the federal minimum wage is at its lowest point since 1956, according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Though some executives said worker wages were partly to blame for rising prices, workers’ real wages fell 2.4% last year after adjusting for inflation, the AFL-CIO report noted. CEO pay, meanwhile, grew by 18.2% in 2021. “Last year the average CEO-to-worker pay ratio of S&P 500 companies was 324 to 1. In 2020, it was 299 to 1. And in 2019, it was 264 to 1,” AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond said in prepared remarks. “So to put a fine point on this, during the pandemic, the ratio between CEO and worker pay jumped 23%,” Redmond added. “Instead of investing in their workforces by raising wages and keeping the prices of their goods and services in check, their solution is to reap record profits from rising prices and cause a recession that will put working people out of our jobs.” The biggest CEO-to-worker pay ratios were at companies including Amazon
AMZN,
+3.91%,
Expedia
EXPE,
+6.40%,
McDonald’s
MCD,
+1.62%,
and The TJX Companies
TJX,
+3.57%,
according to the report. The Amazon CEO-to-worker pay ratio of 6,474 to 1 topped out the S&P …