These CEOs Are Making Bank–And Vastly Outearning Their NJ Workers, Study Finds

The pay gap between corporate executives and workers at some of the largest companies in the nation keeps growing, including several big businesses with links to New Jersey, a report says.

The Institute for Policy Studies recently released its 2026 “Executive Excess” list. The annual study takes a look at the 100 S&P 500 corporations with the lowest median worker pay – and the highest CEO earnings.

The progressive-leaning think tank included data from 2019 to 2025 in this year’s report. View the full list and learn about its methodology here.

The average CEO-worker pay ratio of the firms widened from 574 to 1 in 2019, to 614 to 1 in 2025.

Average CEO compensation for the group hit $17.5 million last year. The average median worker pay was $36,571, researchers said.

The report named several companies with heavy New Jersey footprints. Some have seen major labor disputes over the past few years, including Starbucks and Amazon. Another company named in the report was Live Nation Entertainment, which the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General has accused of running a “monopoly” at the expense of Garden State residents.

Other businesses landing on the list have headquarters or major corporate offices in New Jersey, including Becton Dickinson (Franklin Lakes), Cognizant Technology Solutions (Teaneck), Ralph Lauren (Nutley), and Mondelez International (Whippany).

Researchers noted that the 100 firms spent a combined $108.6 billion on stock buybacks in 2025. These companies also have a combined force of 1,282 registered federal lobbyists.

The report includes policy suggestions such as taxing “extreme” CEO-worker pay gaps, increasing the stock buybacks tax, and restricting buybacks and CEO pay through federal contracts and subsidies.

The following chart is reposted courtesy of the Institute for Policy Studies (article continues below):

WORKERS ON PUBLIC AID

Between 2019 and 2025, average CEO compensation within this group rose 41.4 percent in nominal terms (unadjusted for inflation) – double the 20.7 percent increase in these firms’ average median worker pay. The U.S. inflation rate over this same period was 25.9 percent.

Meanwhile, some of the companies on the list have thousands of workers who are receiving Medicaid or SNAP benefits in states across the nation, IPS researchers found.

This trend has also been seen in New Jersey, other reports say.

Large companies employ more than 132,000 New Jersey workers in New Jersey whose low incomes qualify them for Medicaid, New Jersey Advance Media recently found.

The top 10 private companies that made the NJ.com list were: Amazon (15,574), Walmart (10,207), Century II Staffing (9,140), Wawa (7,606), Target (5,210), Saker ShopRites (4,209), Home Depot (4,218), FedEx (3,440), CVS Pharmacy (3,265), and Dollar Tree (2,892).

One of those companies, CVS, allegedly “paid zero federal corporate income taxes” in its most recent fiscal year – even though it raked in substantial profits, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

• Related: These 88 Corporations Paid Zero Federal Income Taxes Last Year, Report Says
• Related: NJ Working Families Can’t Keep Up With Skyrocketing Inflation, Report Finds
• Related: 6 Billionaires From NJ Make New List Of World's Richest

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