A report from the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) highlights how companies like Walmart, Amazon, and Target prioritize share repurchases over wage growth. Walmart alone spent $8.1 billion on buybacks in 2025, an amount sufficient to provide every one of its 2.1 million employees with a $3,851 bonus. While median worker pay stagnated at $36,571, average CEO compensation across these 100 firms reached $17.5 million.
US Low-Wage Giants Funnel $718 Billion Into Buybacks
The 100 U.S. corporations offering the lowest median wages have directed $718 billion toward stock buybacks since 2019, a period during which executive compensation surged by 41%. These firms now maintain an average CEO-to-worker pay ratio of 614 to 1, effectively widening the divide between leadership and the workforce.
Lumentum recorded the most extreme disparity in the group, with an executive pay ratio of 2,884 to 1. Beyond internal pay structures, the report notes that these corporations frequently lobby for tax cuts while their own employees rely on public programs like Medicaid and SNAP. Sarah Anderson, lead author of the study, noted that these influential leaders have remained silent on threats facing their staff, such as immigration enforcement and the erosion of social safety nets. IPS suggests that lawmakers address these imbalances by increasing taxes on companies with high pay gaps and restricting stock buybacks for federal contractors.
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