At least eighteen Ohio companies pay their CEO more than 100 times what they pay their median worker, a new report shows.
Those companies pay their CEOs an average of more than $14.5 million per year, according to a report compiling financial data produced by the AFL-CIO, a trade union that advocates for higher worker wages. Those same businesses pay workers a median of about $66,000.
The report provides a look at the growing chasm between the staggering sums CEOs take home versus what most their workers earn. Federal law passed in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse requires companies to disclose their CEO to “median employee” pay ratio.
Looking across the S&P 500, the average CEO earned $18.3 million in 2021 — a $540,000 increase over the prior year, according to the report. Meanwhile, their average employees earn $58,260 — a $1,303 increase. For workers, this amounts to a real wage decrease given historic levels of economic inflation.
The Ohio companies prove no more equitable in their pay gaps.
For instance, Bath & Body Works, a Reynoldsburg based company that sells various beauty products and fragrances, paid CEO Andrew Meslow $17.7 million in 2022. Its median worker earned $10,632.
“If the total compensation per hour earned by the median employee was extrapolated to full-time employment, median compensation would be approximately $26,200 and the ratio would be 674 to 1,” the company wrote in a recent financial statement.
Kroger, the Cincinnati based...
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