The typical CEO compensation package at S&P 500 companies rose nearly 6% in 2025 to $17.7 million, as corporate boards rewarded top executives for bigger profits and higher stock prices — widening a pay gap that has drawn increasing scrutiny in New York and beyond.

The Numbers

The Associated Press’ annual CEO compensation survey, using data analyzed by Equilar, covered 337 executives at S&P 500 companies who served at least two full consecutive fiscal years and filed proxy statements between January 1 and April 30, 2026. The median employee at those same companies earned $89,744 — a 4.7% increase year over year that outpaced inflation but left many workers still feeling the pinch of accumulated price increases and rising credit-card debt used to cover everyday necessities.

At half the companies surveyed, it would take the worker at the middle of the pay scale 200 years to earn what the CEO made in one. That’s up from 192 years in the prior year’s survey, which has tracked the pay ratio since companies were required to disclose it starting in 2018. The ratio is highest at companies in low-wage industries: at Coca-Cola, the CEO earned nearly 1,739 times the median worker pay of $17,947. At TJX Cos., the parent of TJ Maxx and Marshalls, the ratio was roughly 1,774 to 1.

New York Context

The pay gap has taken on local political urgency. Sarah Anderson, who directs the Global Economy Project at the progressive Institute for Policy Studies, noted that there are now ballot initiative campaigns in San Francisco and Los Angeles to raise taxes on companies with sizable CEO-to-worker pay ratios. In New York, where the headquarters of dozens of S&P 500 firms anchor the local economy, the conversation around executive compensation intersects with the city’s affordability crisis. Overall, private-sector wages and benefits rose 3.4% through 2025, according to the Labor Department, while the average U.S. worker earned $67,000 — or $96,000 when benefits such as health care and other insurance are included.

How CEO Pay Is Structured

Salary and bonuses make up only a fraction of a modern CEO’s package. The bulk comes in stock awards — often tied to performance targets the executive can’t cash in for years, if at all, unless the company meets certain benchmarks for stock price, market value, or operating profits. And when the CEO delivers on those metrics, companies often grant one-time rewards as incentives to stay and not look for a bigger payday elsewhere.

Shareholders can weigh in through non-binding “say on pay” votes at annual meetings, but the votes rarely produce surprises: the average “yes” vote at companies in this year’s survey was around 90%. Business of New York will continue monitoring compensation trends and their implications for the city’s workforce.

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