Where Data Tells the Story
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As Starbucks shutters stores and trims jobs in a billion-dollar restructuring, its new CEO Brian Niccol is earning a frothy $46,056 every hour, a number that at any perspective highlights the widening wage gaps between median workers and CEOs.
Walmart’s hourly CEO pay is roughly 40% higher than that of McDonald’s, despite employing far more workers at the frontline.
Several retail CEOs earn around $8,000–$9,000 an hour, underscoring how normalized eight-figure pay packages have become across the sector.
Even companies facing stagnant growth or heavy competition, like Gap and Abercrombie, still compensate their leaders at levels exceeding $8,000 per hour.
The hourly CEO pay figures come from AFL-CIO’s Paywatch database, which tracks executive compensation across U.S. companies. Reported numbers are based on total annual pay divided by a standard work year of 2,080 hours, offering a simple way to compare compensation to hourly wages earned by typical employees. While this method doesn’t reflect the real work patterns of executives, it provides a consistent benchmark to highlight the scale of CEO pay relative to the workforce.
💵 The median pay ratio across the S&P 500 shows CEOs earning about 196 times more than the average worker.
🏬 Retail tends to have some of the widest gaps, since frontline wages are among the lowest of any industry.
📈 CEO pay is increasingly tied to stock awards and bonuses, making annual totals swing with share performance.
🕒 Even at the “low” end of this list, CEOs are earning more in one hour than a full-time worker makes in months.
📊 The AFL-CIO reports that CEO pay has grown by over 1,200% since 1978, while typical worker pay rose only 15% in the same period.