CEO pay guides grounded in live SEC filings
Plain-language explainers for the CEO pay ratio, proxy tables, and industry context, each tied to the same DEF 14A corpus PlainCEOPay ranks and compares.
- Corpus median ratio
- 87:1
- Highest reported
- 7,581:1
- Comparable companies
- 2,456
- FY filings in view
- 1,423
Download the SEC pay-ratio extract cited on this page: ceo-pay-ratios.csv (SEC EDGAR DEF 14A · CC BY 4.0).
Answer first
General Merchandise Stores leads median ratio at 767:1; Amusement & Recreation leads median CEO pay at $16.9M.
According to latest-year-per-SIC DEF 14A medians (63 industries), ratio rank is not dollar rank. General Merchandise Stores is #1 on median ratio and #5 on median CEO pay (8 filers). These guides explain how Item 402(u) is calculated so a company page is read against that split, not as a single leaderboard. About 50% of complete FY2025 filings sit at or above the 87:1 company-level median.
- Median-ratio #1
- 767:1
- General Merchandise Stores · pay #5
- Median-pay #1
- $16.9M
- Amusement & Recreation · ratio #4
- Company median
- 87:1
- FY2025 complete filings
How the 7 guides are typed
Exclusive editorial categories on this hub. Segments sum to 7: a catalog shape, not a pay-ratio distribution.
How common is “above the median”?
The hero bar already names the highest-median industries. This gauge answers the orthogonal question: what share of complete FY2025 filings clear the 87:1 corpus median.
How to use these guides
Start with the ratio definition, then the proxy walkthrough, then industry context, so any company page you open has a comparable frame.
Every figure cited here comes from PlainCEOPay’s EDGAR-derived tables (reported CEO total compensation, median employee pay, and the resulting pay ratio). See methodology for scope and refresh.
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 2025
The top 25 highest-paid chief executives in publicly traded companies for FY2025, ranked by reported 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.
Understanding Stock-Based Compensation
How RSUs, options, and performance shares work, and why the compensation numbers in SEC filings can be misleading.
CEO Pay by Industry
Why industry context is essential for interpreting executive compensation data. Which sectors pay the most and why ratios differ.
How to Read a Proxy Statement
The proxy statement (DEF 14A) is the source of all CEO pay data. Learn how to navigate it and find the key tables.
Methodology
Guides explain SEC disclosure concepts using the same DEF 14A fields PlainCEOPay ranks and compares. Live hub stats above refresh with the corpus; individual guide bodies are editorial explainers, not typed substitute tables.
When methodologies differ across filers (sampling, cost-of-living adjustments, equity grant timing), we note the limitation inline rather than inventing a single “true” cross-company number.
Source and method. PlainCEOPay is rendered directly from U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission EDGAR Form DEF 14A proxy statements. PlainCEOPay extracts disclosed values and does not estimate a figure that a filing does not report. Guide hub stats are live corpus aggregates; guide pages explain SEC disclosure concepts using PlainCEOPay's EDGAR-derived tables, no figure is typed in by an editor. See our Editorial & Corrections Policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or Report a correction.