Forbes: The Wage Gap Between CEOs And Workers Is Widening—Starbucks Is The Biggest Offender

Parents Forum
1

The wage gap between CEOs and workers at the lowest-paying firms on the S&P 500 rose by almost 13% between 2019 and 2024, an analysis released Thursday shows, with CEO pay rising more than twice as quickly as that of the average worker.

The average CEO-to-worker pay ratio at the Low-Wage 100 companies widened by 12.9% percent over the study period, from 560 to 1 in 2019 to 632 to 1 in 2024.

Starbucks, the global coffee chain, had the largest pay ratio gap in the entire S&P 500 at 6,666 to 1 last year—Brian Niccol reportedly pocketed $95.8 million while the average worker earned $14,674, the eighth-lowest median pay of any S&P 500 firm, the report found.

An overwhelming majority of likely voters surveyed by Data for Progress last year think corporations with extreme wage gaps should be penalized. Eighty percent of respondents said they’d support a tax hike for corporations that pay their CEO 50 or more times what they pay their median employees. In an April poll conducted by FlexJobs, 80% of workers believed CEOs are overpaid and 69% said they didn’t believe the CEO of their company could do their job for one week.

2

The Institute for Policy Studies appears to be the original source of the study / report:

Is this a specifically college-related headline?

1 Like
3

Was actually considering this when I posted. Maybe better fit in the Parents Cafe or Parents Forum? cc: @moderators

4

Parents forum, as it is relevant to parental concerns about their college grads. Either is fine probably

1 Like
5

Note that this covers only the 100 of the publicly traded S&P 500 large companies with the lowest pay levels. So privately held companies (some of which can be quite large or which have highly paid executives) and smaller companies are not included.

1 Like
6

Doesn’t Starbucks help their employees with college tuition and health insurance?

7

Yes, but the cost of the health insurance is pretty much the amount of take home pay. I know a couple people who worked there just to be able to allow their families to have health insurance. If they had needed money for rent, food or childcare, they’d have been out of luck.

1 Like