The United States topped the list in 2018 for the country with the highest gap between CEO and worker pay. In that year, for every U.S. dollar an average worker received, the average CEO earned 265 U.S. dollars. India, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and the Netherlands rounded out the top five for countries with the highest CEO to worker pay.

The 99 percent

It is a well-known issue that wages for average workers in the United States have been stagnating. Average hourly earnings for American employees, which have been hovering just below 11 U.S. dollars, have not gone up by much over the past year. The federal minimum wage in the United States has been 2.13 U.S. dollars for tipped workers and 7.25 U.S. dollars for non-tipped workers since 2009 and would be much higher today if minimum wage was adjusted for inflation.

The one percent

The gap between normal workers and CEOs is particularly high in the U.S. The richest CEO in 2018 was Elon Musk, with an annual compensation of about 2.84 billion U.S. dollars. America is also home to the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, who is the head of Amazon.com.

In 2022, it was estimated that the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio was 344.3 in the United States. This indicates that, on average, CEOs received more than 344 times the annual average salary of production and nonsupervisory workers in the key industry of their firm.

In 2020, the CEO of the apparel and footwear company VF Corp received 1,767 U.S. dollars in compensation for every one dollar received by the company's median worker. This was the highest CEO to worker wage ratio of the year. In comparison, the bank Wells Fargo & Company had a ratio of 550 to 1.

This statistic shows the average annual compensation of CEOs around the world in 2017 by country. In 2017, the average annual income of CEOs in the United States was 14.25 million U.S. dollars which is about 5 million U.S. dollars more than the average annual income of CEOs in Switzerland.

Graph and download economic data for Employed full time: Wage and salary workers: Chief executives occupations: 16 years and over: Women (LEU0254685100A) from 2000 to 2024 about occupation, females, full-time, salaries, workers, 16 years +, wages, employment, and USA.

Despite comprising of a smaller share of the U.S. population than African Americans or Hispanics, the most represented non-white U.S. CEOs were of an Asian background. They made up 55 percent of CEO positions at Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies in 2024. By comparison, 11 percent of CEOs at the time were African American. The rise of environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) Investments in ESG have risen dramatically over last few years. In November 2023 there were approximately 480 billion U.S. dollars in ESG ETF assets worldwide, compared to 16 billion U.S. dollars in 2015. ESG measures were put in place to encourage companies to act responsibly, with the leading reason for ESG investing stated to be brand and reputation according to managers and asset owners. Gender diversity With the general acceptance of ESG in larger companies, there has still been a significant employment gap of women working in senior positions. For example, the share of women working as a partner or principal at EY, one of the largest accounting firms in the world, was just only 28 percent in 2023.

In the first quarter of 2024, almost two-thirds percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10 percent of earners. In comparison, the lowest 50 percent of earners only owned 2.5 percent of the total wealth. Income inequality in the U.S. Despite the idea that the United States is a country where hard work and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps will inevitably lead to success, this is often not the case. In 2023, 7.4 percent of U.S. households had an annual income under 15,000 U.S. dollars. With such a small percentage of people in the United States owning such a vast majority of the country’s wealth, the gap between the rich and poor in America remains stark. The top one percent The United States follows closely behind China as the country with the most billionaires in the world. Elon Musk alone held around 219 billion U.S. dollars in 2022. Over the past 50 years, the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio has exploded, causing the gap between rich and poor to grow, with some economists theorizing that this gap is the largest it has been since right before the Great Depression.

Residents of the District of Columbia had the highest personal income per capita in 2023, at 100,909 U.S. dollars. Mississippi residents, on the other hand, had the lowest personal income per capita, at 48,110 U.S. dollars. What is personal income? Personal income is the income that a worker receives from all sources, including salary, wages, bonuses, income from self-employment, dividends from investments, and receipts from real estate investments. Because of this, total personal income is different from the average wage, as personal income takes more factors into account than just salary and compensation. Income in the United States Wages and salaries in the United States can vary greatly depending on the profession a person is in, and the rise (or fall) of wages is seen as a key economic indicator as to the financial health of the country’s residents. In recent years, the increasing gap between CEO compensation and the compensation of the average worker has brought the issue of stagnating wages to the forefront of the national conversation.

As of December 2024, the telecommunications company AT&T had around 141 thousand employees, a sharp decrease from the previous year. AT&T on cost-cutting trend AT&T's workforce has declined year-on-year since 2019, with a 40 percent reduction through to January 2024. In 2020, AT&T's CEO, John Stankey, committed the operator to finding six billion U.S. dollars in savings by 2023, with a reduction in labor costs listed as a key target. In Spring 2023, the operator announced further measures in the form of office closures across the country, with a new policy requiring certain management staff to attend an office at least three times a week. While these measures did not include layoffs, AT&T stated that the new requirements may spur employees to seek opportunities elsewhere. Moreover, the company's 2022 decision to spin off its interest in the media company WarnerMedia significantly reduced its workforce by over 20 percent. AT&T’s revenue AT&T is a leader in the wireless telecommunications sector, servicing the most wireless subscriptions among U.S. operators. Despite this, the company faces strong competition from rival network operators Verizon and T-Mobile US, particularly in the 5G space. AT&T ranked second in U.S. 5G coverage in 2024, and third in typical 5G download speeds. T-Mobile US held the top spot in both metrics, having invested heavily in its 5G network in an attempt to challenge AT&T and Verizon.