At a time when workers and labor groups are pushing for higher wages, a new study by the AFL-CIO shows U.S. CEOs are paid 373 times more than the average worker.
According to the labor organization’s 2015 Executive PayWatch report, the average CEO made $13.5 million in 2014, compared with the typical nonsupervisory worker who earned about $36,000.
Or, to put it another way, the average CEO made more in a single day than the average worker did for all of 2014.
“America is supposed to be the land of opportunity, a country where hard work and playing by the rules would provide working families a middle-class standard of living. But in recent decades, corporate CEOs have been taking a greater share of the economic pie while workers’ wages have stagnated,’’ the report said.
The huge pay gap is getting wider. In 2013, the average CEO was paid 331 times as much as the average worker and, in 1980, CEOs only made 42 times more.
In addition, the pay for the average S&P 500 Index company CEO went up by almost $2 million in 2014, but the average employee’s salary went up by less than $1,000.
The labor group’s report specifically takes aim at Walmart, a retailer that has been widely criticized for its low wages. The study said a starting Walmart employee making $9 an hour would have to work 1,036 hours just to earn what the company’s CEO Doug McMillon makes in an hour.
The report went on to praise other retailers, such as Costco, for their ability to pass savings onto customers and provide workers with good pay, benefits and consistent schedules.
Costco’s average worker makes $20.89 an hour compared with Walmart’s $11.50. However, when it comes to CEO pay, Walmart’s clearly earns more. Walmart’s top executive makes the equivalent of $9,323 an hour, compared to Costco’s $2,703.
In issuing the findings, Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, said the United States faces an income inequality crisis because CEOs have only applied the notion of raising wages to themselves, not all the people who work for them.
Union officials said they will use the data to mobilize and campaign for higher wages to lift workers out of poverty and strengthen the middle class.
