CEOs of S&P 500 companies earned an average of $ 18.3 million last year, an increase of 18.2% and more than double the US inflation rate, according to a new union report AFL-CIO.
The union’s annual report on executive compensation, which has become a benchmark for rising inequality in the U.S., found that the ratio of CEO salaries to workers ’incomes reached 324 to 1 last year, from 299 to 1 in 2020 and 264.-to-1 in 2019.
The findings underscore the financial stress many workers now suffer from due to inflation, which exceeds usual wage growth. Although the salary of average workers rose 4.7% last year, their real incomes after inflation fell 2.4%. In contrast, CEOs stayed well ahead of last year’s inflation rate of 7.1%.
“It’s another version of ‘more for them and less for us,'” AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond said in a statement about the findings. “And it comes at a time when the workers’ living standards have declined with each increase in the price of food, rent and gas. “
The report also pointed to “greed” as the cause of the CEO’s pay rise. Some experts blame corporate profit-making, mostly because some companies raise prices even more than their underlying costs, as an engine of inflation.
“During the pandemic, the ratio between the salary of the CEO and the worker increased by 23%,” Redmond said. “Instead of investing in their labor force by raising wages and keeping the prices of their goods and services under control, their solution is to make record profits from rising prices and cause a recession that will leave workers out of control. our job “.
check for $ 296 million
The typical CEO is boosting his salary with compensation through stock options, restricted stocks and non-equity incentives. For example, the CEO’s average salary was about $ 1.2 million last year, but the typical restricted stock award amounted to nearly $ 10 million.
The highest-paid CEO last year among the S&P 500 corporations was Peter Kern of Expedia, whose salary was more than $ 296 million, according to AFL-CIO estimates. In second place was Amazon CEO Andrew Jassy, with compensation of more than $ 212 million.
Expedia and Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The AFL-CIO noted that Amazon had the largest pay gap between the CEO and the employee, from 6,474 to 1. While Jassy’s compensation was more than $ 212 million last year, the Typical Amazon worker earned less than $ 33,000 a year in 2021, the union said.
Amazon stores have been the focus of unionization efforts, with some successes and some losses. The huge difference between the salary of a typical Amazon worker and that of its CEO underscores why some of the e-commerce giant’s workers are organizing union actions, the AFL-CIO said.
“But workers are starting to fight the economy of greed,” Redmond said. “From Bessemer, Alabama, to Staten Island, New York, Amazon workers come together to form unions and negotiate for a fair return on their work.”
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