Adjusted for inflation, the average hourly wage for American private sector workers grew by just 1.3% from 2024 to 2025, according to Oxfam and ITUC’s analysis. In comparison, earnings for the 384 CEOs in the S&P 500 for whom pay data is available increased by 25.6% between 2024 and 2025.
CEOs are paid an average of 281 times more than the typical worker, according to a September 2025 report by the Economic Policy Institute, with CEOs taking home an average total of $22.98 million in 2024. That’s up from a ratio of 60 just three and a half decades ago.
“What the data shows is that we cannot have a conversation about the affordability crisis without talking about extreme inequality, and in particular the extreme inequality between CEO pay and worker pay,” Patricia Stottlemyer, labor rights policy lead for Oxfam America, tells CNBC Make It.
The majority, 65%, of consumers in the U.S. say that price increases are outpacing their income, according to a February survey from J.D. Power.
Inflation rose from an annual rate of 2.4% in February to 3.3% in March, according to a release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and prices have cumulatively increased by about 16% over the past four years, according to the Consumer Price Index.
Many Americans are cutting back: 56% of Americans say everyday life has become less affordable for their households over the past year, according to the CNBC and SurveyMonkey Quarterly Money Survey, released in April, and 59% say that they are living paycheck-to-paycheck.
In addition to pulling back on discretionary spending (49%), dipping into savings (40%), and delaying major purchases (37%), the survey found, some Americans are looking for ways to boost their income: 30% are taking on extra work, a side hustle, or a second job; 29% are looking for higher paying jobs; and 14% asked for a raise or higher salary.
Even after reducing their spending, lower earners are still “having a hard time making ends meet” in the current economy, Will Auchincloss, Americas retail sector leader at EY-Parthenon, told CNBC Make It in December. The Oxfam report found that the purchasing power of the federal minimum wage has decreased by almost 21% since 2019, Stottlemeyer says.
CNBC
In the U.S., CEO pay grew 20 times faster than workers' w...
A new report from Oxfam found that CEOs' earnings continue to grow even as workers' wages stagnate.
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