The average CEO of the United States' 100 largest, lowest-paying corporations earned 614 times more than their average worker in 2025, according to an analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).

IPS’s latest executive excess report examined compensation at the 100 S&P 500 corporations with the lowest median worker pay. Between 2019 and 2025, CEO compensation increased by 41.4%, unadjusted for inflation, which is twice the 20.7% increase in median worker pay at these firms during the same period. Inflation rose by 25.9%, outpacing worker pay increases.

The CEO-to-worker pay ratio at these low-wage firms grew by 8.4% between 2019 and 2025. In 2025, the average CEO compensation was $17.5 million, compared to a median worker pay of $36,571.

The wealth of at least 36 billionaires is linked to these corporations, including Walmart’s eight Walton family members, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Mackenzie Scott, and Carvana co-founders Ernie Garcia II and Ernie Garcia III.

Sarah Anderson, lead author of the report and director of the Global Economy Project at IPS, commented, “This is really a big problem for society, that we have such extremes.”

The report also highlights that these low-wage corporations employ 1,282 registered federal lobbyists and notes that many did not oppose aggressive immigration enforcement actions affecting their workforce or property.

To address excessive executive pay, the report suggests policy measures such as increasing taxes on corporations that pay CEOs more than 50 times their median employees, raising taxes on stock buybacks, and using government contracts and subsidies to restrict stock buybacks by contractors.

Sources