cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/48434783

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• Hackernews.

Key Findings

1. CEO pay at Low-Wage 100 firms has soared since 2019 while median worker pay has lagged behind U.S. inflation.

• Between 2019 and 2024, average CEO compensation within this group rose 34.7 percent in nominal — unadjusted for inflation — terms, more than double the 16.3 percent increase in these firms’ average median worker pay. The U.S. inflation rate over this same period: 22.6 percent.
• Average CEO compensation within the Low-Wage 100 hit $17.2 million in 2024. The group’s average median worker pay sat at just $35,570.
• The average CEO-worker pay ratio of Low-Wage 100 firms has widened by 12.9 percent, from 560 to 1 in 2019 to 632 to 1 in 2024.
• The nominal value of median pay actually fell at 22 Low-Wage 100 corporations during this period.
• The Starbucks pay gap hit 6,666 to 1 last year, the Low-Wage 100’s widest spread by far. In 2024, the Starbucks CEO pocketed $95.8 million. Over the past six years, amid worker discontent fueling union-organizing drives at hundreds of Starbucks stores, the firm’s median pay rose just 4.2 percent in real terms to $14,674. Only seven S&P 500 firms have lower median pay.
• Ulta Beauty reported the Low-Wage 100’s steepest drop in median pay. Between 2019 and 2024, a period when the cosmetic retailer significantly expanded the part-time worker share of its workforce, the company’s real median pay plunged by 46 percent to $11,078.

2. From 2019 through 2024, the Low-Wage 100 spent $644 billion on stock buybacks.

• Over the past six years, all but three Low-Wage 100 firms spent corporate dollars on stock buybacks. By repurchasing their own shares, companies artificially inflate executive stock-based pay and siphon resources out of worker wages and productive long-term investments.
• Lowe’s ranks as the Low-Wage 100’s buyback leader. The company spent $46.6 billion on share repurchases from 2019 through 2024. Over that span, this sum could have funded an annual $28,456 bonus for each of the firm’s 273,000 employees — or added 88 employees to each of the firm’s retail outlets. In 2024, Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison enjoyed a total compensation of $20.2 million — 659 times more than the retailer’s $30,606 median annual worker pay.
• Home Depot currently sits second in the Low-Wage 100 buyback rankings. The big-box chain spent $37.9 billion on share repurchases between 2019 and 2024. That outlay would have been enough to give each of Home Depot’s 470,100 global employees six annual $13,423 bonuses. The Home Depot median pay: just $35,196.

3. From 2019 through 2024, a majority of Low-Wage 100 firms spent more on stock buybacks than on long-term capital expenditures.

• Over the past six years, 56 Low-Wage 100 companies plowed more corporate cash into buying back their own shares of stock than investing in capital improvements.
• If we exclude capital expenditure outlier Amazon from the calculation, the Low-Wage 100 as a whole spent more on buybacks than on “CapEx” during this period.

4. At least 32 billionaires owe their wealth to Low-Wage 100 companies.

• Five of these firms have spawned multiple billionaires still living today: Walmart (eight), Estee Lauder (four), DoorDash (three), Public Storage (two), and Tyson Foods (two).

5. Policy changes can prevent wasteful stock buybacks and excessive CEO payouts.

• Taxing extreme CEO-worker pay gaps: In one recent survey, 80 percent of likely voters expressed support for a tax hike on corporations that pay their CEO over 50 or more times what they pay their median employees.
• Increasing the buybacks tax: If Congress in 2022 had set our current 1 percent excise tax on stock buybacks at 4 percent, the Low-Wage 100 would have owed approximately $6.3 billion in additional federal taxes on share repurchases in 2023 and 2024.
• Restricting buybacks and CEO pay through federal contracts and subsidies: The Biden administration made modest progress on this front through the CHIPS semiconductor subsidy program. But the federal government could be doing much more to leverage the power of the public purse against wasteful stock buybacks and excessive CEO pay.