New Executive Paywatch Report: More for Them, Less for Us

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson made a whopping $28 million in 2017 – more than 366 times the average rank-and-file AT&T worker. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam made nearly $18 million, while American Airlines CEO Doug Parker raked in $12 million.

Those numbers and more come from the AFL-CIO's Executive Paywatch website, a comprehensive searchable online database tracking CEO pay. The new paywatch report from the AFL-CIO shows that in 2017, CEOs of S&P 500 Index companies received, on average, $13.94 million in total compensation. Rank-and-file workers earned only $38,613, on average – a CEO-to-worker pay ratio of 361 to 1.

Why does it matter? Big corporations have rigged the rules of our economy by passing the Republican corporate tax cut bill that rewards companies for offshoring jobs and slashes the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Rather than aggressive stock buybacks to artificially prop up stock prices and raise CEO pay, companies must use these record profits to invest in their employees, who have seen their wages stagnate and their employers sending jobs overseas and to low wage contractors.