Amazon CEO Andy Jassy speaks at the GeekWire Summit.Dan DeLong/GeekWire
- The pay disparity between S&P 500 CEOs and their workers grew even larger in 2021, a new report says.
- The AFL-CIO found this pay ratio was 324-to-1 last year, up from 299-to-1 in 2020.
Pay disparities between CEOs and workers at some of the world's biggest companies grew even bigger last year, a new report says.
In 2021, the average S&P 500 CEO made 324 times what their company's average worker made, according to a report published Monday by the AFL-CIO. That's up from 299-to-1 in 2020.
While S&P 500 CEO pay rose 18.2% last year, worker wages only rose 4.7%, the report says. The rate of inflation last year was 7.1%.
These numbers point to what's called "greedflation," the report says.
"CEOs, not working people, are causing inflation," the AFL-CIO wrote. "Runaway CEO pay is a symptom of greedflation — when companies increase prices to boost corporate profits and create windfall payouts for corporate CEOs."
Some of the biggest pay disparities were found at companies where workers are currently pushing for unions for higher wages, among other reasons, including Amazon, Starbucks, and Apple.
Here are the 20 S&P 500 companies identified in the report as having the biggest CEO-to-worker pay ratios: