The Institute for Policy Studies found the average CEO at the 100 S&P 500 corporations with the lowest median worker pay earned $17.5 million in 2025, 614 times the median worker pay of $36,571. Between 2019 and 2025 CEO compensation at those firms rose 41.4% while median worker pay rose 20.7%, and inflation over the period was 25.9%, meaning worker pay gains lagged inflation. The CEO-to-worker pay ratio at the low-wage 100 increased 8.4% from 2019 to 2025. IPS linked the wealth of at least 36 billionaires to these firms, including Walmart’s Walton family members, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Mackenzie Scott, and Carvana co-founders Ernie Garcia II and Ernie Garcia III. The report notes the low-wage 100 employ 1,282 registered federal lobbyists and that many did not publicly oppose aggressive immigration enforcement affecting their workforce. Stock buybacks among these firms rose to $108.6 billion in 2025 from $105 billion in 2024, and totaled $718 billion from 2019 through 2025; Walmart led with $8.1 billion in buybacks in 2025, an amount IPS said equates to $3,851 per its 2.1 million workers. IPS recommended policy responses including a tax on corporations that pay CEOs more than 50 times their median employee, higher taxes on stock buybacks, and using government contracts and subsidies to bar contractors from engaging in buybacks.
