CEO vs. worker pay: Walmart, McDonald’s, and eight other firms with biggest gaps

These 10 companies have some of the highest-paid CEOs in the US and huge gulfs between CEO and average worker compensation, according to a study from NerdWallet. Can you guess which company has the biggest pay gap? 

1. McDonald's

Lucy Nicholson/Reuters/File
Protesters stand outside a McDonald's restaurant in Los Angeles.

CEO: Donald Thompson

Average hourly worker wage: $7.73

CEO hourly compensation: $9,247 (1,196 times the average worker wage)

Overtime to CEO pay: 3.86 months

The world’s largest hamburger chain has the dubious distinction of having the biggest wage gap between its CEO and its workers. Like Walmart, the chain has become a focal point of the efforts of fair-wage advocates. In October, a labor group released a recording of a McDonald’s worker help-line operator instructing an employee on how to apply for food stamps. Over the summer, a 2010 budget sheet released by McDonald’s for its employees drew public outrage for its impracticality: among other things, the budget included income for a second job (implying workers needed one) and failed to factor in costs like groceries, gas, and childcare.

A series of fast-food worker strikes have been held across the country since this past summer. 

10 of 10

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.