CEOs got an 11% raise in 2025; workers just 0.5%. The average top exec now makes 490 years of a typical employee’s wages.
In 2025, the incomes of leading CEOs worldwide surged at a pace 20 times higher than that of the average worker, with at least four CEOs from major companies earning over $100 million in compensation and incentives last year alone.
Amid global concerns about adapting to artificial intelligence in the workplace, top corporate leaders continue to claim the majority share of profits. As has been the case for centuries, these wealthy individuals prefer to enrich themselves rather than invest in their workforce.
According to a fresh report by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and Oxfam reveals, CEOs at large multinational firms saw their real wages climb 11 percent in 2025, while typical global employees experienced a mere 0.5 percent rise in real earnings. Put differently, CEO pay rates outpaced those of workers by a factor of 20 last year.
In the United States, CEO compensation ballooned 20.4 times faster than wage growth for employees. Data from 384 CEOs in the S&P 500 shows a 25.6 percent pay increase between 2024 and 2025, whereas average hourly wages for private sector employees rose only 1.3 percent in real terms during the same period.
The study uncovered several alarming findings:
- Since 2019, global workers’ real wages have dropped by 12 percent, equating to 108 unpaid workdays over six years (31 days unpaid in the past year alone).
- Across 1,500 companies, the gender pay gap stands at an average of 16 percent, which means female employees effectively work for free after November 4 each year.
- Last year, the typical CEO earned $8.4 million in salary and bonuses, up from $7.6 million in 2024 — a sum requiring 490 years of an average worker’s income to match.
- Almost 1,000 billionaires collectively received $79 billion in dividends in 2025—amounting to $2,500 every second. In less than two hours, an average billionaire’s dividend income exceeds a worker’s entire annual pay.
- A handful of corporations, including Blackstone, Broadcom, and Goldman Sachs, reported paying their CEOs over $100 million in 2025. The top 10 highest-paid CEOs combined took home more than $1 billion.
Billionaires are also deploying their immense wealth to influence political arenas, effectively purchasing elections worldwide. As a consequence, billionaires are 4,000 times more likely than average citizens to hold elected office. Once empowered, they push laws benefiting themselves and their allies, resulting in weakened labor protections, cuts to public services, and steep tax breaks for the wealthiest.
Executives and their companies repeatedly exploit their financial clout to amplify power and control, often at the expense of democracy and workers’ rights.
For instance, Larry Ellison, Oracle’s billionaire founder and former richest individual globally, has leveraged his fortune to become a significant shareholder in Paramount, which was acquired by his son’s company and encompasses the major broadcaster CBS.
In France, Vincent Bolloré, retired CEO of the Bolloré investment group, exerts control over CNews, which bills itself as France’s version of Fox News.
In 2024, Oxfam lodged a formal complaint with the United Nations, accusing Amazon and Walmart of widespread human rights abuses. These companies’ immense wealth has effectively crushed union-building efforts and collective worker organizing.
“We can’t continue to let a handful of super-rich people siphon off the rewards of work that belong to millions. Governments must cap CEO pay, fairly tax the super-rich and ensure minimum wages at the very least keep pace with inflation and ensure a dignified living. And workers must be able to exercise, without fear or obstruction, their rights to organize, to strike, and to bargain collectively. They are the ones who generate society’s wealth; they should be able to claim, as a matter of justice, what they are due,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar.
“These measures can do far more than redistribute income; they can create economies that reward work, invest in communities, and hold powerful interests accountable. This is how we turn a system rigged for the few into one that works for everyone.”
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