By Cole Horton and Ross Kerber
(Reuters) – S&P 500 chief executives made $18.3 million on average in 2021, 324 times the pay of their median workers and higher than the ratio in 2020, the top American labor union will report on Monday.
Corporate leaders’ raises far outpaced wage gains that failed to keep up with inflation, said the AFL-CIO, in an annual report that has become widely cited as a measure of inequality trends in the U.S.
“At this moment, rising CEO pay and corporate profits are signals of an economy that’s out of balance,” said Brandon Rees, a deputy director for the AFL-CIO.
The 2021 CEO-to-worker ratio in the S&P 500 was the widest since 2018, when the union was first able to track the figure based on new disclosures. The ratio was 299-to-1 in 2020.[L1N2OQ1ML]
Amazon.com Inc. CEO Andy Jassy’s total compensation of $212.7 million last year was 6,474 times that of its median worker. That was the highest ratio out of all S&P 500 companies based on their latest proxy statements, the AFL-CIO said.
A spokesperson for Amazon said that Jassy’s compensation was “competitive with that of CEOs at other large companies” as it vests over 10 years.
The highest paid CEO in the S&P 500 was Peter Kern of online travel company Expedia Group Inc., whose compensation totaled $296.2 million, according to the study.
An Expedia spokesperson noted details in the company’s proxy statement about Kern’s compensation, including that equity awards make up the bulk of the pay package and will not fully vest until at least 2026.
Top CEOs benefited from big stock awards and cash bonuses last year. [L2N2WC198]. The union found S&P 500 CEOs’ average pay rose 18% in 2021, while U.S. consumer prices rose 7%.
Other federal figures cited by the union show nominal worker wages rose 4.7% last year, but fell 2.4% adjusted for inflation.
(Reporting by Ross Kerber in Boston and Cole Horton in New York; Editing by Alistair Bell)
