Your CEO earns
how much more than you?
Pay ratios, executive compensation, and median worker wages for 2,071 U.S. public companies, drawn directly from U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission EDGAR proxy filings (DEF 14A) since 2018. According to SEC Item 402(u) of Regulation S-K, every domestic public registrant must disclose its CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio; see our methodology for refresh cadence and the exact filing parsing.
- Public companies
- 2,071
- Median ratio
- 124:1
- Years tracked
- 2018–2024
- Source
- SEC EDGAR
- 1. ABERCROMBIE & FITCH … 6,076:1
- 2. UNIVERSAL CORP /VA/ 3,083:1
- 3. Yum China Holdings, … 2,858:1
- 4. AMC ENTERTAINMENT HO… 2,201:1
- 5. SKECHERS USA INC 2,199:1
- 6. ROSS STORES, INC. 2,100:1
Highest Pay Ratios
CEO-to-median-worker pay gap leaders
Highest Paid CEOs
Top executive compensation by total pay
Learn About Executive Pay
CEO Pay Ratio Explained
What the SEC-mandated pay ratio means, how it's calculated, and what it reveals about income inequality within a company.
How Executive Compensation Works
Stock awards, options, bonuses, and base salary: the full structure of modern CEO pay packages at public companies.
Highest Paid CEOs 2024
The top 25 highest-paid chief executives in publicly traded companies, ranked by total compensation.
Pay Equity Trends in Corporate America
How CEO-to-worker pay ratios have shifted since mandatory disclosure, and what the data shows across industries.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a CEO pay ratio?
The CEO pay ratio compares a company's CEO total compensation to the annual total compensation of its median (middle) employee. Required by the SEC since 2018 (Dodd-Frank Section 953(b)), it appears in every public company's annual proxy statement. A ratio of 300:1 means the CEO earns 300 times more than the typical worker.
Where does the data come from?
All data comes directly from SEC EDGAR proxy statements (DEF 14A filings). Public companies are required to disclose CEO pay, median employee pay, and the resulting ratio. PlainCEOPay aggregates these disclosures from 2,071 companies.
Why do ratios vary so much between companies?
Several factors drive differences: industry (tech CEOs often earn more stock awards), workforce composition (companies with many part-time or international workers show lower median pay), company size, and individual CEO pay packages. Stock awards and options can dramatically inflate CEO compensation in good years.
Is this data free to use?
Yes — all data on PlainCEOPay is completely free. The underlying data is public SEC disclosure. We organize it for easy research with no paywalls or account requirements.
Related Guides
Editorial context for the plainceopay dataset — methodology, comparisons, and deep dives into the underlying records.
Live Data Products
PlainCEOPay is built on the SEC executive_pay + industry_benchmarks tables. Every page renders directly from the current dataset. See all research.
Company Compensation Profiles
Per-company executive compensation summaries — total CEO pay, salary / bonus / equity components, pay ratios — across all SEC-reporting companies in the dataset.
Live DataPay Rankings
Companies ranked by CEO total compensation and CEO-to-worker pay ratio, derived from the live pay_rankings table.
Live DataIndustry Benchmarks
Industry-level compensation aggregates from the industry_benchmarks table — median CEO pay, average pay ratio, percentile spreads, and per-industry company counts.