Union report: CEOs make 347 times more than average workers

Corporate executives are taking in 347 times the average worker’s salary, the nation’s leading trade union says.

AFL-CIO’s Executive PayWatch, a searchable online database tracking CEO pay, found that the average CEO of an S&P 500 company made $13.1 million per year in 2016.

In comparison, production and nonsupervisory workers earned $37,632 on average last year, the database found.

{mosads}“This year’s report provides further proof that the greed of corporate CEOs is driving America’s income inequality crisis,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in a statement Tuesday. 

“Big corporations continually find ways to rig the economy in their favor and line their CEOs’ pockets at the expense of the workers who make their businesses run.”

But the Center for Union Facts — a group critical of labor unions — claims it analyzed the Bureau of Labor Statistics and union disclosure forms and found that the average U.S. chief executive made $194,350, not $13.1 million. 

The group said 192 union presidents actually made more than chief executives earn on average — including the AFL-CIO’s Trumka, who made $294,537 in 2016.

Center for Union Facts spokesman Luka Ladan called the AFL-CIO’s findings misleading.

“By attacking business leaders with cherry-picked data, labor leaders are glossing over their own startling pay discrepancies,” he said in a statement. 

“The AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions would be better off figuring out how to effectively serve their disgruntled members than scoring cheap PR points.”