Latest news with #AFL-CIO
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Starbucks' CEO made 6,666 times more than his workers in 2024
Starbucks' CEO, Brian Niccol, made 6,666 times more than his average worker last year, according to a report on the growing gap between top executives and their workers. The inequality gap between CEOs' pay and that of their median workers rose in 2024 to 285 to 1 from 268 to 1 in 2023, according to a report released this week by the largest federation of labor unions in the US, the AFL-CIO. CEO pay rose 7% in 2024 among S&P 500 companies, an increase of $1.24m from 2023. Niccol, who joined the company in September 2024, received more than $97.8m in total compensation in 2024. The typical Starbucks worker's pay was less than $15,000. 'The median Starbucks worker would have had to start working for Starbucks in 4643 BC (during the Stone Age!) just to earn what Starbucks' CEO earned in 2024 alone,' the report stated. The report notes Trump's 'big, beautiful' reconciliation bill passed this year will hand the average CEO of an S&P 500 company a $489,118 tax cut, 639 times more than the median US worker. 'Corporate CEOs are raking in millions, and now they'll get another kickback from President Trump's tax cut gift and anti-worker agenda,' said Fred Redmond, secretary treasurer of the AFL-CIO. 'Trump is paying for this handout to CEOs by cutting healthcare, food assistance and hundreds of thousands of jobs that depend on government investments.' An analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found the top 1% of US families, by income, will collectively receive a tax cut of $1.02tn over the next decade as a result of the reconciliation bill. Donald Trump first ran for president criticizing exorbitant CEO pay, claiming he was going to raise taxes on them. Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion 'You see these guys making these enormous amounts of money, and it's a total and complete joke,' Trump said in 2015 during an interview during his first presidential campaign. 'They pay very little tax, and that's going to end when I come out with my plan in about three weeks, could be sooner than that … We're going to be reducing taxes for the middle class. But for the hedge fund guys, they're going to be paying up.' In the wake of Trump's 2017 tax cuts, corporations saw their tax rates fall from an average of 22% to 12.8% after the law went into effect. Under his first presidential term, average CEO pay rose from $13.1m in December 2016 to $15.5m in December 2020. Corporate income tax collections dropped in the wake of Trump's 2017 tax cuts by $93bn in 2018.
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
CEO pay climbs ahead of Trump tax windfall for wealthy
Starbucks' CEO Brian Niccol made 6,666 times more than his average worker last year, according to a report on the growing gap between top executives and their workers. The inequality gap between CEOs' pay and that of their median workers rose in 2024 to 285 to 1 from 268 to 1 in 2023, according to a report released this week by the largest federation of labor unions in the US, the AFL-CIO. CEO pay rose 7% in 2024 among S&P 500 companies, an increase of $1.24m from 2023. Niccol, who joined the company in September 2024, received more than $97.8m in total compensation in 2024. The typical Starbucks worker's pay was less than $15,000. 'The median Starbucks worker would have had to start working for Starbucks in 4643 BC (during the Stone Age!) just to earn what Starbucks' CEO earned in 2024 alone,' the report stated. The report notes Trump's 'big, beautiful' reconciliation bill passed this year will hand the average CEO of an S&P 500 company a $489,118 tax cut, 639 times more than the median US worker. 'Corporate CEOs are raking in millions, and now they'll get another kickback from President Trump's tax cut gift and anti-worker agenda,' said Fred Redmond, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO. 'Trump is paying for this handout to CEOs by cutting health care, food assistance and hundreds of thousands of jobs that depend on government investments.' An analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found the top 1% of US families, by income, will receive a tax cut of $1.02tn over the next decade as a result of the reconciliation bill. Donald Trump first ran for president criticizing exorbitant CEO pay, claiming he was going to raise taxes on them. 'You see these guys making these enormous amounts of money, and it's a total and complete joke,' Trump said in 2015 during an interview on his first presidential campaign. 'They pay very little tax, and that's going to end when I come out with my plan in about three weeks, could be sooner than that … We're going to be reducing taxes for the middle class. But for the hedge fund guys, they're going to be paying up.' In the wake of Trump's 2017 tax cuts, corporations saw their tax rates fall from an average of 22% to 12.8% after the law went into effect. Under his first presidential term, average CEO pay rose from $13.1m in December 2016 to $15.5m in December 2020. Corporate income tax collections dropped in the wake of Trump's 2017 tax cuts by $93bn in 2018.
Fast Company
5 days ago
- Business
- Fast Company
The gap between CEO and worker pay keeps increasing—and Trump's policies are making it grow faster
Ten years ago, just months after announcing his presidential campaign, Donald Trump called sky-high CEO pay 'disgraceful,' telling CBS's Face the Nation in 2015: 'You see these guys making enormous amounts of money, and it's a total and complete joke.' Since then, average CEO pay—and the gap between it and median worker pay—has grown even more. And as president, Trump's policies are making that inequality even worse. The average CEO-to-worker-pay ratio for S&P 500 Index companies in 2024 was 285 to 1, according to the AFL-CIO's annual Executive Paywatch report —an increase from 268 to 1 in 2023. In 2024, as Americans fretted about the rising costs of eggs and housing, and the way they felt the country's economy was leaving them behind, the average CEO of an S&P 500 company saw an average pay increase of $1.24 million. In 2024, the CEOs at those companies received $18.9 million in total compensation, up 7% from the year prior. The tax cuts in Trump's 'big beautiful bill' are set to increase CEO take-home pay even more. Each CEO is set to get about $500,000 back from those tax cuts; all together, the CEOs of the publicly traded companies in the AFL-CIO's Executive Paywatch database will see a combined $738 million in income tax savings. Meanwhile, that bill has severely cut funds for government services like Medicare health coverage, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, and school lunches. The AFL-CIO is a 70-year-old federation of more than 60 unions, representing 15 million-plus workers. It is highlighting CEO pay through this report to note how 'the system is obviously broken,' Fred Redmond, AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer, said in a press conference. 'Workers really have one concern in mind: They just want to share in the benefits and profits that they help to create every day. And the 285-to-1 ratio is not fair compensation to the workers.' Skyrocketing CEO pay isn't a recent issue; the gap between what a CEO takes home and what an average worker earns has been widening for years. Looking at the S&P Index specifically, the average CEO compensation package increased $6.5 million in the past decade alone, the report notes. In 1965, the pay ratio between CEOs and average workers was 20 to 1. The median annual wage for workers in the U.S. across all industries was just $49,500 in 2024. At that wage, a worker would need to have been working since 1740 to earn what the average S&P 500 CEO took home in 2024. Of course, CEO-to-worker-pay ratios also vary by individual company. In 2024, Starbucks's new CEO, Brian Niccol, received upwards of $95 million in total compensation. That puts Starbucks's CEO-to-median-worker-pay ratio at 6,666 to 1. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella earned $79 million in 2024, for a ratio of 408 to 1. Along with cutting taxes for high earners, the Trump administration is considering no longer requiring this information be publicly disclosed to investors. In 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted a rule requiring CEO-to-worker-pay ratio disclosures (that requirement didn't go into effect until 2017). But Trump's SEC chair, Paul Atkins, has said that rules around executive compensation disclosure have grown 'increasingly complex and lengthy,' and is reportedly considering loosening disclosure requirements, including around executive perks like the personal use of corporate jets. The AFL-CIO is advocating for those disclosure requirements to remain as they are. 'In our view, sunlight is the best disinfectant to prevent CEO pay, waste, fraud, and abuse,' Redmond said, 'and we are urging visitors to the Executive Paywatch website to tell the SEC the importance of CEO pay disclosure.'
CNN
6 days ago
- Business
- CNN
This company's CEO made 6,666 more than its typical worker
Starbucks' coffee isn't the only thing at the company that's amped up. Its CEO, Brian Niccol, made a whopping 6,666 times more than the company's typical employee last year, according to the AFL-CIO's annual Executive Paywatch report, released Wednesday. It was the widest pay gap by far between the top executive and median worker among the nation's 500 largest public companies listed in the report. Niccol, who took over the company's helm last September, received nearly $98 million in compensation, compared to the typical Starbucks worker's pay of less than $15,000, according to the report, which drew from corporate filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Starbucks is but one example of the hefty pay gap between America's corporate leaders and their workers, which grew even larger in 2024. CEOs at the largest public companies took home $18.9 million last year, or 285 times as much as the typical US worker's paycheck of $49,500. That's up from a ratio of 268 to 1 a year earlier, according to the AFL-CIO, a powerful federation of labor unions representing 15 million workers. The typical employee would have had to start working in 1740 to earn what the average CEO received in 2024, the report noted. CEO pay at S&P 500 companies increased 7% in 2024 from the prior year. It topped the prior peak of $18.3 million in 2021, though the ratio was 324 to 1 that year. The typical private sector worker's raise last year was 3%, the AFL-CIO said, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data. At Starbucks, the typical worker is a part-time barista in the US, the company said in its SEC filing. It noted that many of its employees work in part-time, flexible positions, which has the effect of lowering the compensation level of its median employee. Also, the calculation includes its global workforce of about 361,000 staffers, not just the roughly 210,000 US-based workers. Some staffers at the coffee retailer have formed a union, Starbucks Workers United, and have staged strikes at various locations in recent years. Among their demands is a wage increase. It's 'no wonder why the workers there at Starbucks are fighting to form a union with the Starbucks Workers Union to improve their pay and working conditions,' Fred Redmond, AFL-CIO's secretary-treasurer, told reporters. 'And these numbers only begin to scratch the surface of how runaway executive pay is fueling economic inequality.' Starbucks did not immediately return a request for comment. Big tax break from GOP package In its report this year, the AFL-CIO highlighted that the sweeping tax and spending cuts package that President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4 will provide CEOs with far bigger tax breaks than workers. The average CEO will receive a tax cut of nearly $490,000 from the permanent extension of the lower individual income tax rates, which were initially reduced in Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the report found. That compares to a $765 tax break for the typical US worker. Unlike workers, salaries are not the largest component of CEOs' compensation. Nearly half of the top executives' total pay was restricted stock awards, and another $4 million were bonuses. The highest-paid CEO of an S&P 500 company was Patrick Smith of Axon Enterprise, which manufactures Tasers and other weapons for law enforcement and the military. He received a package of nearly $165 million.
CNN
6 days ago
- Business
- CNN
AFL-CIO Executive Paywatch: Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol made 6,666 more than its typical worker
Starbucks' coffee isn't the only thing at the company that's amped up. Its CEO, Brian Niccol, made a whopping 6,666 times more than the company's typical employee last year, according to the AFL-CIO's annual Executive Paywatch report, released Wednesday. It was the widest pay gap by far between the top executive and median worker among the nation's 500 largest public companies listed in the report. Niccol, who took over the company's helm last September, received nearly $98 million in compensation, compared to the typical Starbucks worker's pay of less than $15,000, according to the report, which drew from corporate filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Starbucks is but one example of the hefty pay gap between America's corporate leaders and their workers, which grew even larger in 2024. CEOs at the largest public companies took home $18.9 million last year, or 285 times as much as the typical US worker's paycheck of $49,500. That's up from a ratio of 268 to 1 a year earlier, according to the AFL-CIO, a powerful federation of labor unions representing 15 million workers. The typical employee would have had to start working in 1740 to earn what the average CEO received in 2024, the report noted. CEO pay at S&P 500 companies increased 7% in 2024 from the prior year. It topped the prior peak of $18.3 million in 2021, though the ratio was 324 to 1 that year. The typical private sector worker's raise last year was 3%, the AFL-CIO said, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data. At Starbucks, the typical worker is a part-time barista in the US, the company said in its SEC filing. It noted that many of its employees work in part-time, flexible positions, which has the effect of lowering the compensation level of its median employee. Also, the calculation includes its global workforce of about 361,000 staffers, not just the roughly 210,000 US-based workers. Some staffers at the coffee retailer have formed a union, Starbucks Workers United, and have staged strikes at various locations in recent years. Among their demands is a wage increase. It's 'no wonder why the workers there at Starbucks are fighting to form a union with the Starbucks Workers Union to improve their pay and working conditions,' Fred Redmond, AFL-CIO's secretary-treasurer, told reporters. 'And these numbers only begin to scratch the surface of how runaway executive pay is fueling economic inequality.' Starbucks did not immediately return a request for comment. In its report this year, the AFL-CIO highlighted that the sweeping tax and spending cuts package that President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4 will provide CEOs with far bigger tax breaks than workers. The average CEO will receive a tax cut of nearly $490,000 from the permanent extension of the lower individual income tax rates, which were initially reduced in Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the report found. That compares to a $765 tax break for the typical US worker. Unlike workers, salaries are not the largest component of CEOs' compensation. Nearly half of the top executives' total pay was restricted stock awards, and another $4 million were bonuses. The highest-paid CEO of an S&P 500 company was Patrick Smith of Axon Enterprise, which manufactures Tasers and other weapons for law enforcement and the military. He received a package of nearly $165 million.
