Skip to content

Thursday, Jul. 17, 2025

Did the average S&P 500 CEOs earn in less than two days what their typical worker earned in all of 2023?

Sreejita Patra / Wisconsin Watch, Wisconsin Watch
yes

In 2023, the average S&P 500 CEO earned $17.1 million in total compensation compared with $63,800 earned by the average worker in an S&P 500 company. For the CEO that works out to $46,849 a day.

Because average compensation rates include extreme outliers, it’s notable that median pay differences between CEOs and workers in 2023 also yielded similar results. 

The median S&P 500 CEO earned $16.3 million in 2023 while the median worker for those companies earned around $81,400. Outliers notwithstanding, CEOs still earned their workers’ annual pay in a little less than two days.

This phenomenon continued in 2024 as the median S&P 500 CEO pay jumped nearly 10% and worker compensation increased by less than 1.05%.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

About fact briefs

Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.

See all fact briefs

Wisconsin Watch, the news arm of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, increases the quality and quantity of investigative reporting in Wisconsin, while training current and future investigative journalists. Its work fosters an informed citizenry and strengthens democracy.

Learn More

Latest Fact Briefs

Be a Friend of facts

Help us fund more great fact briefs like this one.