Worst CEO-to-Worker Pay Ratios in 2026

The 25 Widest CEO-to-Worker Pay Gaps

Every U.S. public company has been required to disclose the ratio of CEO compensation to median-worker compensation since fiscal year 2017 under SEC Rule §240.402(u). The figures below pull directly from the most recent annual DEF 14A proxy statements. A ratio of 1,000:1 means the CEO earned in roughly one trading day what the median worker at the company earned in three years.

Why the Highest Ratios Concentrate in Specific Industries

The widest pay ratios are not random across industries — they cluster in three categories. Each carries a distinct structural explanation, and reading the ratio in industry context matters more than reading the raw number in isolation.

Retail and quick-service restaurants dominate the highest-ratio list because both employ large hourly workforces whose median pay sits at or near minimum wage. A retail CEO earning $25M compared to a median associate earning $28,000 produces a ratio close to 900:1 without the CEO being unusually highly paid by S&P 500 standards. The ratio is driven by the denominator, not the numerator. That doesn't make the gap acceptable — but the structural cause is workforce composition, not extreme executive pay.

Industrial conglomerates with international operations often disclose elevated ratios because U.S. securities law allows the median-worker calculation to include all employees worldwide. A company with 80% of its workforce in lower-wage countries reports a much wider gap than an otherwise-identical company with a U.S.-only footprint, even if U.S. median pay is comparable. This is a real disclosure quirk worth reading proxy statements for — many companies note their median worker is in a specific foreign country.

Big tech with stock-heavy executive packages appears in the high-ratio cohort whenever a multi-year equity grant vests in the disclosure year. Total CEO compensation in a vest year can run two to five times a typical year, pushing the ratio temporarily high. Boards usually footnote the proxy with the multi-year average for context; the headline ratio alone overstates the structural gap.

What a High Ratio Says — and What It Doesn't

A wide pay ratio is a signal, not a verdict. The Pay-for-Performance grade column shows whether the executive's pay was earned through measurable company results — total shareholder return, revenue growth, and shareholder say-on-pay support. A CEO with a 1,200:1 ratio and an A grade is being paid a lot, but the pay is delivering returns. A CEO with a 600:1 ratio and an F grade is the more meaningful concern: the gap is narrower, but the justification is weaker.

The companies that appear on this list and on the Worst Pay-for-Performance ranking are the ones worth shareholder scrutiny: wide pay gap and poor performance alignment. Click through to each individual company page for the full pay breakdown, multi-year compensation history, and say-on-pay vote results.

How the Dodd-Frank Pay Ratio Disclosure Works

Section 953(b) of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, finalized by the SEC in 2015 and effective for fiscal years beginning January 1, 2017, requires every U.S. public company to disclose three numbers: the annual total compensation of its CEO, the annual total compensation of its median worker, and the ratio between the two. The company picks the methodology for identifying the median worker, must disclose it in the proxy, and may re-identify the median worker every three years rather than annually.

The flexibility in median-worker identification means cross-company comparisons should be read carefully. A company can include or exclude part-time workers, seasonal workers, and overseas workers depending on its policy choices. Reading the ratio without checking the methodology footnote in the proxy can mislead — two otherwise comparable companies can report ratios differing by hundreds purely on accounting choice.

Despite the methodology variability, the ratios are useful for tracking within a single company across years (the methodology stays roughly constant year-to-year) and for identifying outliers worth deeper investigation. The list above is the starting point; the company-specific data tells the rest of the story.