A fresh report indicates that the income gap between CEOs of S&P 500 companies and their employees has widened further. CEOs are paid substantially more than their workforce, but how stark is this wage gap really?
A recent study conducted by CEOWORLD magazine scrutinized the top 100 largest corporations in the United States. It aimed to uncover the duration it would take for an employee earning median pay to accumulate the same annual earnings as their CEO.
Amazon holds the record for the largest annual wage disparity between the CEO and its average employees. In 2021, Amazon’s CEO, Andrew Jassy, received an annual salary of $212,701,169, whereas the typical employee earned $32,855. This results in a staggering pay ratio of 6474:1, which implies that an average Amazon worker would have to work for approximately 6,474 years to amass what Andrew Jassy earns in just one year.
In other words, it would take nearly 6474 years for an Amazon employee to match Andrew Jassy’s annual salary. Conversely, it takes Jassy less than two hours to earn what an Amazon employee makes in a year.
McDonald’s ranks second in the list of largest pay gaps, where its employees would need slightly more than 2,251 years to match the annual earnings of CEO Christopher Kempczinski. TJX Companies follows closely, with an average worker requiring over 2,249 years to earn as much as their CEO in a year. In Oracle, this time period extends to more than 1,841 years.
The table below represents the ten corporations where employees earning median pay would need the most extended durations to accumulate what their respective CEO earns in a single year:
10 companies with the biggest wage gaps between CEOs and employees
| Rank | Company | CEO | Annual salary (millions) | Annual salary of median worker | Years to reach CEO pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Amazon | Andrew Jassy | 212.7 | 32855 | 6473.9 |
| 2 | McDonald | Christopher Kempczinski | 20 | 8897 | 2251.1 |
| 3 | TJX Companies | Ernie Herrman | 31.8 | 14139 | 2249.19 |
| 4 | Oracle | Safra Catz | 138.19 | 75043 | 1841.5 |
| 5 | Coca-Cola | James Quincey | 24.9 | 13894 | 1791 |
| 6 | Intel | Patrick Gelsinger | 178.6 | 104400 | 1710.6 |
| 7 | Starbucks | Kevin Johnson | 20.39 | 12935 | 1579.1 |
| 8 | Apple | Timothy Cook | 98.7 | 68254 | 1446.6 |
| 9 | Walmart | C. McMillon | 25.7 | 25335 | 1013.2 |
| 10 | Booking Holdings (Booking.com) | Glenn Fogel | 54 | 58005 | 930.6 |
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