CEO pay grows 20 times faster than worker wages as inequality widens

Wage growth for workers has stagnated while CEOs' earnings continue to rise, according to a new report released Thursday from Oxfam and the International Trade Union Confederation. In the U.S., according to Oxfam, CEO pay increased about 20 times faster than workers' wages in the past year, based on an analysis of data from the S&P Capital IQ database, the Federal Reserve and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Adjusted for inflation, the average hourly wage for American private sector workers grew by just 1.3% from 2024 to 2025, according to Oxfam and ITUC's analysis. In comparison, earnings for the 384 CEOs in the S&P 500 for whom pay data is available increased by 25.6% between 2024 and 2025. CEOs are paid an average of 281 times more than the typical worker, according to a September 2025 report by the Economic Policy Institute, with CEOs taking home an average total of $22.98 million in 2024. That's up from a ratio of 60 just three and a half decades ago. "What the data shows is that we cannot have a conversation about the affordability crisis without talking about extreme inequality, and in particular the extreme inequality between CEO pay and worker pay," Patricia Stottlemyer, labor rights policy lead for Oxfam America, tells CNBC Make It. The majority, 65%, of consumers in the U.S. say that price increases are outpacing their income, according to a February survey from J.D. Power. Inflation rose from an annual rate of 2.4% in February to 3.3% in March, according to a release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and prices have cumulatively increased by about 16% over the past four years, according to the Consumer Price Index. Many Americans are cutting back: 56% of Americans say everyday life has become less affordable for their households over the past year, according to the CNBC and SurveyMonkey Quarterly Money Survey, released in April, and 59% say that they are living paycheck-to-paycheck. In addition to pulling back on discretionary spending (49%), dipping into savings (40%), and delaying major purchases (37%), the survey found, some Americans are looking for ways to boost their income: 30% are taking on extra work, a side hustle, or a second job; 29% are looking for higher paying jobs; and 14% asked for a raise or higher salary. Even after reducing their spending, lower earners are still "having a hard time making ends meet" in the current economy, Will Auchincloss, Americas retail sector leader at EY-Parthenon, told CNBC Make It in December. The Oxfam report found that the purchasing power of the federal minimum wage has decreased by almost 21% since 2019, Stottlemeyer says. In Stottlemeyer's view, the current economic system is "designed to benefit this ultra wealthy few at the expense of working people." Part of the solution, she says, is enacting effective labor policies to raise the minimum wage and "tax the ultra rich." On Tuesday, a group of Democratic Congress representatives introduced the Living Wage for All act, a bill that would require all large employers — companies that either have 500+ employees nationwide or have gross annual revenues of 1 billion or more — to raise their minimum wage to $25 by 2031. Smaller employers would be required to reach a $25 minimum wage by 2038. "The resources are there" to raise workers' pay, Stottlemeyer says: "It's just a matter of policy choice that decides how the wealth that workers generate is allocated."