Your Boss Earns More in One Day Than You Will All Year

Darin Gilley

February 16, 2023

Counterpunch features Sarah Anderson and her piece America’s Inequality Problem in One Statistic…

If you work for a big corporation, there’s a very good chance your boss has already raked in more cash than you will all year.

If the typical CEO of a large U.S. corporation clocked in at 9 am on January 2, by 3:37 pm that afternoon he’d made$58,260 — the average annual salary for all U.S. occupations. In less than seven hours on the first workday of the year, that CEO made as much as the average U.S. worker will make all year long.

I recently took a look at the even wider disparities for various types of essential workers. My calculations are based on average S&P 500 CEO pay of $18.3 million in 2021 (the most recent figure available), which works out to $8,798 per hour, or $147 per minute.

Here at GM, CEO Mary Barra is ahead of the curve according to Salary.com

For its 2021 fiscal year, General Motors Co, listed the following CEO pay ratio data on its annual proxy statement to the SEC.