With fuel costs, power payments, and grocery prices all rising, the affordability disaster is prime of thoughts for many staff.
However you’ll be able to’t speak about that disaster with out additionally speaking about excessive wealth inequality, says Patricia Stottlemyer, coverage lead for labor rights at Oxfam America.
And simply as affordability has worsened just lately, so has the hole between common staff and the wealthy, together with firm CEOs.
In 2025, for instance, the highest 1,500 CEOs of the world’s largest companies noticed an 11% real-terms pay increase. The common world employee, alternatively, noticed their actual wages enhance by solely 0.5%.
Which means these CEOs noticed their pay enhance 20 instances sooner than staff final yr. In america particularly, CEO pay grew 20.4 instances sooner than staff’ wages, a rise of 25.6% in comparison with simply 1.3%.
The info comes from a new analysis by the Worldwide Commerce Union Confederation (ITUC) and Oxfam, which highlights the methods staff are being left behind; the evaluation is tied to Worldwide Staff’ Day, additionally referred to as Could Day.
‘CEOs have by no means had it so good’
The common CEO took residence $8.4 million in each pay and bonuses in 2025, up from $7.6 million in 2024, in accordance with the evaluation.
Look again even additional, and the expansion is much more stark. In 2019, the common CEO pay was $5.5 million, that means there’s since been a 54% enhance in actual phrases.
Some executives rake in drastically greater than that. The CEO of semiconductor firm Broadcom obtained a 2025 pay package deal totaling $205.3 million; Microsoft’s CEO obtained $96 million.
The true wages for staff all over the world, nevertheless, have dropped 12% since 2019.
“This information actually places some numbers behind what common working people are feeling each day,” Stottlemyer says.
Between 2019 and 2025, meals costs have elevated by 15% and gasoline costs by 14%, when adjusted for inflation—and that’s not even together with the current value shocks from the battle in Iran.
On April 28, fuel costs within the U.S. hit their highest stage in 4 years, reaching a mean of $4.18 for one gallon.
“Meals and fuel costs [are] hovering, and 48% of the world resides in poverty,” Stottlemyer says. “And whereas staff face that distinctive hardship, the CEOs of the world’s largest companies have by no means had it so good.”
Staff are extra productive, however have much less to point out for it
It’s not solely firm executives who’ve seen these advantages. Billionaires on the whole have been getting richer.
In 2025, complete billionaire wealth grew by $126,000 per second, the evaluation discovered. Already in 2026, billionaires are collectively $4 trillion richer than they have been 12 months in the past.
One of many main methods billionaires make this cash is thru dividends from the businesses they’re invested in. Firms paid out $79 billion in dividends to billionaires in 2025 alone—equal to $2,500 each second.
On common, Oxfam says, billionaires earn more money from dividends in beneath two hours than the common employee earns over a yr.
Staff generate this financial worth, Stottlemyer notes. However they’re taking residence much less and fewer of the worth that they create.
“What we’re seeing on this information is that staff have gotten extra productive. They’re producing extra wealth, however they’ve much less to point out for it,” she says.
(The rise in productiveness couldn’t be attributed to 1 factor just like the explosion of AI, Stottlemyer notes).
Staff in the present day primarily create 51% extra financial worth as in comparison with 2004, the evaluation discovered, however they obtain 2% much less share of that revenue.
‘A rigged financial system’
With wealth additionally comes energy, and billionaires have been flexing that energy, notably round politics.
Oxfam estimates that billionaires are 4,000 instances extra more likely to maintain political workplace than peculiar folks—and in lots of circumstances, these rich politicians have lower taxes for the wealthy or appeared to undermine staff’ rights.
The ultra-wealthy additionally form public discourse via media retailers, like Jeff Bezos’s overhaul of the Washington Put up’s opinion part, or how fossil gasoline billionaire Vincent Bolloré took over the French tv channel CNews and turned it into what some have called “the Fox Information of France.”
Firms may suppress employee energy, whether or not via union busting or different office behaviors.
“The explosion of riches on the very prime is emblematic of a rigged financial system that’s designed to profit the ultra-wealthy on the expense of working households,” Stottlemyer says.
In the meantime, gaps in labor coverage exacerbate these points. The U.S. federal minimal wage, in only one instance, has been stagnant at $7.25 an hour for practically 17 years. (Home Democrats only in the near past introduced legislation to boost that minimal wage to $25 an hour.)
Federal minimal wage reform is only one device that might assist staff. ITUC and Oxfam additionally name for governments to enact greater taxes on the wealthy and limits on CEO pay.
If the numbers on this evaluation appear surprising, Stottlemyer says they “mirror the surprising ranges of maximum inequality that individuals really feel each day of their lives.”
“Common working folks know very effectively that the system shouldn’t be of their favor,” she provides.
This Could Day—which celebrates the historical past of labor organizing all over the world—she hopes staff keep in mind that they do have energy to alter their situations.
“It reminds us of all of the ways in which organized labor and labor on the whole has come collectively throughout historical past to struggle for a extra truthful system,” she says. “I hope people keep in mind that staff have the ability to deliver a few extra equal world.”
Disclosure: Mansueto Ventures newsrooms Quick Firm and Inc. are represented by the Writers Guild of America, East.
