The CEO–worker gap is now about 290 to 1
A widely cited estimate puts the average pay of chief executives at the largest U.S. companies at roughly 290 times the pay of a typical worker in 2023. The comparison is not a simple tally of base salaries: executive compensation often includes bonuses and stock awards, whose value can rise sharply when a company’s share price climbs.
Why the ratio widened
That mix changes how the pay gap grows. A worker’s earnings are mostly wages, while a CEO’s compensation can swell when stock awards become more valuable. Boards also use pay packages to compete for executives and tie some rewards to company performance. When markets rise, those arrangements can amplify executive pay even if ordinary wages move much less.
The ratio also compares two different reference groups: executives at very large companies and a typical worker. It is useful for showing the scale of the divide, but it is not a claim that every CEO earns exactly 290 times every employee.
The striking shift is from a gap measured in tens to one measured in hundreds. In practical terms, the comparison highlights how strongly corporate pay has come to depend on ownership-linked rewards—forms of compensation that most workers do not receive.
