At major American companies where worker pay is especially low, the distance between what executives and employees make has become enormous.
One analysis found that in 2025, CEOs at the 100 largest low-paying S&P 500 companies earned a staggering 614 times their median worker's pay, The Guardian reported.
Here's what to know
That estimate comes from the Institute for Policy Studies' Executive Excess report, which examined 100 S&P 500 companies with the lowest median employee pay.
In that group, average CEO compensation in 2025 was $17.5 million, compared with median worker pay of $36,571.
Worker pay growth also lagged behind broader price increases over the period examined.
From 2019 to 2025, median worker pay at those firms rose 20.7% while inflation increased 25.9%; over the same span, CEO compensation climbed 41.4%. That meant many workers lost ground in real terms as executive pay kept rising.
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Sarah Anderson, the report's lead author and director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, described the split starkly.
"To me, it seems like these CEOs are just living on a remote economic planet from the one that their employees are living on, and it makes it really hard for them to fathom what it's like to have to worry about putting food on your family's table or even coming home at night if you are at risk of being detained by ICE," Anderson observed.
More background
The report says the consequences are about more than simple fairness.
In 2025, the 100 low-wage firms spent $108.6 billion on stock buybacks, up from $105 billion in 2024. Between 2019 and 2025, their total buybacks reached $718 billion.
Walmart spent $8.1 billion on buybacks, which the report said could have funded a $3,851 bonus for each of its 2.1 million workers.
The analysis also linked at least 36 billionaires' wealth to these companies, including Walmart's eight Walton family members, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and author and philanthropist Mackenzie Scott, and Carvana co-founders Ernie Garcia II and Ernie Garcia III.
At Walmart, CEO Doug McMillon took home $29.2 million in 2025 compensation — 958 times the company's median worker pay of $30,520.
At the top of the list were Lumentum Holdings, Aptiv, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, and Ross Stores. The Guardian said that Lumentum's CEO made 2,884 times as much as the median employee.
What can be done?
To curb what it describes as excessive executive compensation, the report lays out several policy ideas.
Those suggestions include higher taxes on corporations whose CEO pay exceeds 50 times their median employee pay, higher taxes on stock buybacks, and using government contracts and subsidies to stop contractors from carrying out buybacks.
The report also looks beyond compensation decisions.
It found that the low-wage 100 firms employ a combined 1,282 registered federal lobbyists, and that many companies did not speak out against aggressive immigration enforcement targeting their workforce or taking place on their property.
Low pay can transfer costs to the public.
"Low-wage workers are now facing the biggest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in history," Anderson observed. "Many of the employees at these companies have to rely on those programs, and then so many of them have also been terrorized and detained by ICE agents."
"This is really a big problem for society, that we have such extremes," she added.
Where can I learn more?
The pay gap in this report doesn't exist in isolation.
• Walmart faced backlash after Doug McMillon's $29.2 million compensation underscored the company's pay divide.
• Across corporate America, CEOs defend private jet travel perks as workers absorb the costs.
• At Shell, critics said money-driven practices harming the environment reflected the same warped priorities.
Real companies and real choices drive the compensation trend, and these articles help explain why criticism of executive rewards now goes beyond salary alone.
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