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The pay gap between America’s corporate leaders and their workers grew even larger in 2024, according to the AFL-CIO’s annual Executive Paywatch report, released Wednesday.
CEOs at the nation’s 500 largest public companies took home $18.9 million last year, or 285 times as much as the typical US worker’s paycheck of $49,500. That’s up from a ratio of 268 to 1 a year earlier, according to the AFL-CIO, a powerful federation of labor unions representing 15 million workers.
The typical employee would have had to start working in 1740 to earn what the average CEO received in 2024, the report noted.
CEO pay increased 7% in 2024 from the prior year. It topped the prior peak of $18.3 million in 2021, though the ratio was 324 to 1 that year. The typical private sector worker’s raise last year was 3%, the AFL-CIO said, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
In its report this year, the AFL-CIO highlighted that the sweeping tax and spending cuts package that President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4 will provide CEOs with far bigger tax breaks than workers.
The average CEO will receive a tax cut of nearly $490,000 from the permanent extension of the lower individual income tax rates, which were initially reduced in Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the report found. That compares to a $765 tax break for the typical US worker.
Unlike workers, salaries are not the largest component of CEOs’ compensation. Nearly half of the top executives’ total pay was restricted stock awards, and another $4 million were bonuses.
The highest-paid CEO of an S&P 500 company was Patrick Smith of Axon Enterprise, which manufactures Tasers and other weapons for law enforcement and the military. He received a package of nearly $165 million.
The report listed Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol as making 6,666 times more than the company’s typical worker, the largest pay gap in the S&P 500. (Niccol took over the company’s helm last September. The AFL-CIO annualized his compensation, listing it as nearly $98 million, compared to the typical Starbucks worker’s pay of less than $15,000.)
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