New AFL-CIO Report: It Would Take Five Career Lifetimes for Workers to Earn What Top CEOs Earn in One Year

CEOs of S&P 500 companies made $17.7 million on average in 2023, more than 268 times their median worker’s income, according to a new report released by the AFL-CIO.

The new Executive Paywatch research, released annually by the AFL-CIO, presents a snapshot of the persistent inequality in the American economy, where the wealthiest corporate executives continue to prioritize their own salaries over the workers whose labor makes the companies’ profits possible. AFL-CIO researchers reviewed compensation data for executives at 3,000 companies, including the 500 companies in the S&P 500 Index.

They found that it would take more than five career lifetimes for workers to earn what S&P 500 Index company CEOs receive in just one year—even as these corporations continue to raise prices on working people. With Trump’s Project 2025 Agenda promising further tax cuts for the rich and big corporations, that extreme inequity will only worsen if Donald Trump is elected.

“Working people are sick and tired of politicians like Donald Trump pushing massive tax giveaways for CEOs whose already bloated salaries, bonuses and stock options are driving inequality in our country. Today, the very CEOs who benefited most from Trump’s tax gift to the wealthy are making 268 times what their workers are making. And while corporate profits and stock prices surge, working people’s wages aren’t keeping up,” said Fred Redmond, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO.“Years of poor policy decisions have favored large corporations at the expense of working people and allowed corporate executives to game the system for their own gain. We need elected leaders who will put people over profits and hold CEOs accountable.”

The 2024 AFL-CIO Executive Paywatch Report findings include that:

• Corporations raised prices on consumers even though their commodity costs went down, boosting corporate profits and CEO pay.
• Corporations across industries raised prices while giving their CEOs a raise, like ExxonMobil, Johnson & Johnson and Starbucks.
• While the average CEO of an S&P 500 company received 268 times their median employee’s total compensation, several corporate CEOs made thousands of times more than what their employees made, including Abercrombie & Fitch (CEO-to-worker pay ratio of 6,076-to-1), Mattel (3,620-to-1), and AMC Entertainment Holdings (2,201-to-1).
• Instead of investing in their workers, S&P 500 stock buybacks further boosted the reported profits for shareholders and corporate executives; S&P 500 companies repurchased $795 billion in shares in 2023.

The full report and findings can be viewed at paywatch.org.