The number that should be on every front page: at half the companies in the S&P 500, the median worker would have to clock in for 200 years to make what their CEO made last year. Two hundred. Last year that figure was 192, so the math is getting worse on schedule. Median CEO pay climbed almost 6% to $17.7 million in 2025, rewarded for “bigger profits and higher stock prices,” which is corporate for “we found new ways to pay you less.” At Coca-Cola the boss pulled roughly 1,739 times the median worker’s $17,947. Read that wage again. That’s the company, not me, deciding a human year of labor is worth seventeen grand.
And here’s the part that makes my teeth hurt: 2026 has the highest announced layoffs since the 2009 crash, and the favorite excuse this year is AI. Not “AI made us more efficient and we passed the savings along.” AI as a press release you issue before the software does anything, a permission slip to fire people and watch the stock pop. Profits up, people out, and the guy who signed off on it gets a raise for his courage. The productivity hasn’t shown up. The pink slips have.
So don’t let anyone tell you wages are stuck because the economy is fragile. The economy is doing great — for about 500 people. The “cost discipline” only ever points one direction, and it’s never at the office with the corner view. When they say there’s no money for raises, they mean there’s no money left after the 200 years they already took.