Average CEO-to-Worker Pay Ratio Rises to 324-to-1 in 2021
AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond Unveils Annual Executive Paywatch Website, Highlights Pressing Issue of ‘Greedflation’
(Washington, D.C., July 18, 2022)—Historic corporate profits, profiteering corporations and runaway CEO pay have created the perfect storm for “greedflation,” according to this year’s AFL-CIO Executive Paywatch website, unveiled this morning by AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond.
The Executive Paywatch website, the most comprehensive, searchable online database of CEO pay and CEO-to-worker pay ratios, shows that CEOs of S&P 500 Index companies received, on average, $18.3 million in total compensation in 2021. The average S&P 500 Index company CEO-to-worker pay ratio is now 324-to-1, up from 299-to-1 in 2020 and just 264-to-1 in 2019.
Runaway CEO pay is a symptom of “greedflation,” when companies increase prices to boost corporate profits and create windfall payouts for corporate CEOs. In 2021, corporate profits broke records and CEOs made a fortune during the pandemic. Average S&P 500 Index company CEO pay rose 18.2% in 2021, faster than the U.S. inflation rate of 7.1%.
Wall Street elites have been quick to blame workers’ wages and low unemployment for causing inflation. But in reality, U.S. workers’ earnings actually fell behind inflation, rising just 4.7% in 2021. In real terms, average hourly earnings fell 2.4% last year after adjusting for inflation.
“During the pandemic, the ratio between CEO and worker pay jumped 23%,” said Redmond during a press conference for the website’s release.
“Instead of investing in their workforces by raising wages and keeping the prices of their goods and services in check, their solution is to reap record profits from rising prices and cause a recession that will put working people out of our jobs,” he added.
The juxtaposition between growing inequality and increased union organizing is no coincidence. Petitions filed at the National Labor Relations Board by working people to exercise our freedom to come together in unions and negotiate for a fair return on our work jumped 69% in the first half of this year.
