While Americans spent much of 2025 trying to keep up with rent, groceries, insurance and credit card bills, corporate CEOs collected another year of enormous pay increases worth tens — and in some cases hundreds — of millions of dollars.
New compensation data from an Associated Press analysis of S&P 500 companies shows the typical CEO package climbed nearly 6% last year to $17.7 million. Median worker pay also rose, increasing 4.7% to $89,744.
But after years of higher living costs, plenty of workers no longer experience a modest pay rise as real breathing room.
Paychecks are disappearing faster into housing, transport, food and debt repayments. Families that burned through savings during the inflation shock of recent years are still leaning harder on credit cards just to absorb everyday expenses. The divide between executive wealth and ordinary employees is widening again at a moment when a lot of people already feel financially trapped.
At half the companies included in the AP survey, it would now take the employee in the middle of the company pay scale 200 years to earn what the CEO made in one year. Last year, the figure stood at 192 years.
Some of the payouts barely feel connected to the same economy most Americans are living in. Elon Musk received a compensation package valued at $132.3 billion tied to long-term Tesla stock awards linked to ambitious growth targets involving robotaxis, artificial intelligence and humanoid robots.
Shankh Mitra of Welltower received compensation valued at $821.1 million after the company’s stock price tripled during his leadership period.
At Broadcom, CEO Hock Tan received a package valued at more than $205 million tied partly to future AI revenue growth.
Meanwhile, a lot of employees are still deciding which bills can wait until next month.
The sharpest pay divides appeared at companies with large lower-paid workforces. At The Coca-Cola Company, the CEO earned nearly 1,739 times the median worker pay. At retailer TJX Companies, the ratio was roughly 1,774 times.
For people already stretched thin by rent, loan repayments and rising everyday costs, those numbers are likely to feel detached from reality.
Wage growth may have returned statistically. It does not feel that way in a lot of homes. People are putting off holidays, delaying repairs, cutting back nights out and carrying balances on credit cards longer than they expected. Bigger purchases increasingly feel risky. Even middle-income earners who once felt financially stable are becoming more cautious about spending.
Sarah Anderson of the Institute for Policy Studies called the payouts “obscene” given the strain still facing working families dealing with elevated living costs. Major banks also handed out huge rewards after years of restructuring and stock market recovery.
David Solomon at Goldman Sachs received compensation worth nearly $119 million. Jane Fraser of Citigroup received $95.8 million while overseeing a sweeping restructuring effort that included thousands of layoffs.
Corporate profits and stock prices may still be climbing, but that recovery continues to feel distant for many people staring at shrinking bank balances by the end of the month.
