Topline
The wage gap between CEOs and workers at the lowest-paying firms on the S&P 500 rose by almost 13% between 2019 and 2024, an analysis released Thursday shows, with CEO pay rising more than twice as quickly as that of the average worker.
A barista makes coffee at the Starbucks Roastery in Manhattan on Dec. 27, 2018.
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Key Facts
Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, released its 2025 “Executive Excess” report Thursday analyzing the CEO and worker compensation trends of the 100 S&P 500 corporations with the lowest median worker pay, a group dubbed the “Low-Wage 100.”
The average CEO-to-worker pay ratio at the Low-Wage 100 companies widened by 12.9% percent over the study period, from 560 to 1 in 2019 to 632 to 1 in 2024.
Starbucks, the global coffee chain, had the largest pay ratio gap in the entire S&P 500 at 6,666 to 1 last year—Brian Niccol reportedly pocketed $95.8 million while the average worker earned $14,674, the eighth-lowest median pay of any S&P 500 firm, the report found.
At Starbucks, where employees of more than 500 stores have voted to unionize, median pay rose 4.2% from 2019 to 2024, according to the report.
Average CEO compensation at the 100 companies rose 34.7% between 2019 and 2024 (to $17.2 million), more than twice as much as the 16.3% rise in average median worker pay, which rose to $35,570.
Median pay of workers fell at 22 Low-Wage 100 firms between 2019 and 2024, most steeply at Ulta Beauty, which saw average worker pay plunge 46% to $11,078 as the company increased its reliance on part-time workers.
The report also found that gaps between CEO and worker pay widen gender and racial disparities because women and people of color make up a disproportionately large share of low-wage workers and small share of corporate leaders—the Low-Wage 100 have just eight female CEOs (Accenture, Best Buy, Fidelity National Information Services, Hershey, Ralph Lauren, Ross Stores, Tapestry and Williams Sonoma) and one Black CEO (Lowe’s).
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Surprising Fact
An overwhelming majority of likely voters surveyed by Data for Progress last year think corporations with extreme wage gaps should be penalized. Eighty percent of respondents said they’d support a tax hike for corporations that pay their CEO 50 or more times what they pay their median employees. In an April poll conducted by FlexJobs, 80% of workers believed CEOs are overpaid and 69% said they didn’t believe the CEO of their company could do their job for one week.
Big Number
32. That’s how many billionaires owe their wealth directly to companies in the Low-Wage 100, according to the Institute for Policy Studies. Five companies on the Low-Wage 100 have multiple living billionaires to their name: Walmart, Estee Lauder, DoorDash, Public Storage and Tyson Foods. The Walton family, founders of Walmart, has four billionaires among the richest 40 people in the world. Rob Walton, the oldest son of Walmart founder Sam Walton, is the 12th richest person in the world with a net worth of $122.8 billion. His sister, Alice Walton, is the richest woman in the world with a net worth of $11.5 billion.
Tangent
The Institute for Policy Studies report also looked at which Low-Wage 100 companies spent the most money on stock buybacks rather than invest in worker wages or other long-term investments. Lowe’s was the buyback leader, spending $46.6 billion on share repurchases from 2019 through 2024, followed by Home Depot, which spent $37.8 billion in the same period.
