Along with the idea educational analysis that occupies my working time and is funded by nationwide aggressive analysis funding businesses such because the Australian Analysis Council, I additionally do commissioned work for numerous organisations, largely unions and neighborhood teams. That revenue permits me to additionally cross subsidise the fundamental analysis and is how a analysis centre in a contemporary Australian college manages to remain afloat. Within the latter work, I’m all the time confronted by authorities legal professionals or the consultants the federal government hires to problem my evaluation of cheap pay will increase for union members in issues that seem on the Federal Honest Work Fee or the state-level Industrial Relations Commissions. I’m all the time appalled by the willingness of those authorities businesses to spend hundreds of thousands on excessive paid consultants and legal professionals simply to cease their workforce having fun with a pay rise. The identical businesses look the opposite approach when their govt pay is in focus. And because of wage suppression for employees and the free-for-all on the high, the ratio of govt to common earnings is skyrocketing. This development summarises the inherent inadequacy of capitalism for many of us who rely upon actual wages development to reinforce our materials way of life in economies which might be rising. Two current studies, one within the UK and one in Australia spotlight the indecent state of affairs the place CEOs can earn greater than 130 instances the annual wage of the median full-time UK employee and 55 instances the annual wage of the common full-time employee in Australia. The highest paid CEO in Australia will get 316 instances the common, full-time wage in Australia.
The UK – Excessive Pay Centre – which sadly has simply introduced that it is going to be closing down on the finish of July (see – An announcement on the way forward for the Excessive Pay Centre), launched its newest report (July 11, 2026) – Hole between the pay of FTSE 100 CEOs and UK employees the widest for 8 years – that tells the sorry story.
We learn that the Centre’s:
… annual assessment of CEO pay within the FTSE 100 reveals the Median FTSE 100 CEO to median UK employee pay ratio rose to 130:1 in 2025/26, the very best for 8 years and up from 124:1 final yr …
The imply LTIP fee elevated 20% from £2,258k final yr to £2,709k, whereas the imply STIP award elevated 14% from £1,614k to £1,843k …
A typical FTSE 100 CEO’s whole compensation is on the highest it has ever been, whereas the hole in between these executives and the median UK employee is the very best it’s been for 8 years. With rising requires UK CEO pay to align with US-style govt compensation, guaranteeing that such awards are honest and proportionate is extra necessary than ever. An 8.6% median CEO pay improve, at a time when worker wages proceed to stagnate, residing requirements fall and the cost-of-living disaster continues, is in neither the nation’s nor the financial system’s finest pursuits.
LTIP – long-term incentive plan.
STIP – short-term incentive plan.
Clearly, a deeply unfair pay system.
The Excessive Pay Centre really useful that laws be launched to complement the Employment Rights Invoice to reinforce the capability of commerce unions.
Additionally it says “Massive firms ought to be required to order a proportion of board seats for administrators elected by the workforce, with at the very least one such consultant serving on the remuneration committee.”
And elevated transparency on CEO pay is critical in addition to a “new ‘Fats Cat Tax’”.
Over to the brand new British PM.
Definitely, the outgoing PM did little to cease this extra.
Australia CEO Pay
The newest report from the Australian Council of Superannuation Buyers launched on Thursday (July 15, 20126) – CEO Pay in ASX200 Corporations: July 2026 – reveals how unfair and unsustainable the revenue distribution is in Australia.
Australian CEOs have been absolutely dedicated to the ‘greed is sweet’ binge main as much as the GFC together with their friends throughout the globe.
The GFC interrupted that ‘occasion’, albeit quickly.
Because the emergency surroundings that surrounded the enterprise neighborhood through the GFC abated because of in depth authorities assist (bailouts, stimulus packages, and so on), the managerial class in Australia returned consideration to its on-going ‘nationwide revenue seize’.
The Report reveals that in 2025, CEO pay continued to increase and the managerial class loved actual development in pay at a time when the common employee endured actual pay cuts.
The opposite stark consequence from the most recent information is that the very best paid CEO in Australia is an American entrepreneur who acquired $A48 million in 2025, virtually 500 instances the full-time common wage.
He lives within the US and is the CEO of an ASX listed firm Life360.
5 of the highest 10 CEO pay went to US-based bosses, which the ABC report – Australia’s best-paid govt lives in US and earns 500 instances that of common full-time employee (July 15, 2026) – reported:
It’s the first time within the historical past of this examine that “outsiders” have taken half of the highest 10 spots, though US-based CEOs have all the time featured.
The newest annual CEO pay survey for the 2025 fiscal yr covers govt pay for the 148 ASX200 listed firms on the Australian Inventory Alternate.
Additionally they included information for ASX200 CEOs ‘whose firms are domiciled exterior of Australia. These 15 CEOs should not included in core Australian pattern information however are included in evaluation of the very best paid CEOS throughout the ASX200.”
The analysis from ACSI:
… cuts by complicated public reporting to supply a clearer image of the pay obtained by Australian CEOs.
The principle outcomes from the 2025 survey are:
1. “Excessive scrutiny of fastened pay amongst CEOs of enormous firms has seen ASX100 CEO fastened pay stagnate and decline in actual phrases. The median ASX100 CEO’s fastened pay for FY25 was $1.83m which, even after a 4% improve over the FY24 median, was beneath the document median of $1.95m in FY12.”
2. “The identical stagnation has not been seen in fastened pay for ASX101-200 CEOs. Median fastened pay for an ASX101-200 CEO rose 5.4% in FY25 to $1.14m.”
3. “The median bonus end result for an ASX100 CEO was 70.7% of most in FY25” – it is a persistent development.
4. “extra and better … Termination funds”.
5. “The hole between unusual employees and ASX100 CEOs was 55 instances common Australian grownup earnings, unchanged from FY24. This determine has remained beneath 60 since FY22 …”
6. “Reported pay for the ASX101-200 cohort additionally hit document ranges in FY25, with the median of $2.49m up 4.3% on FY24 (the prior document) and the common of $3.01m up 2.5% on FY24, simply shy of FY23’s document common of $3.01m.”
7. There’s a distinction between ‘fastened pay and money pay’ is necessary, the latter being delinked from firm efficiency and the previous the topic of most public consideration.
I’ve repeatedly demonstrated that there was a widening hole between productiveness development and actual wages development in Australia, which manifests as an rising revenue share in nationwide revenue and a reducing wage share.
This redistribution of nationwide revenue in the direction of capital has been ongoing for the final three a long time or so in most international locations and is a attribute of the neo-liberal period.
For employees, the issue is that they depend on actual wages development to fund consumption development and with out it they borrow or the financial system goes into recession. The previous is what occurred around the globe within the lead as much as the disaster (and triggered the disaster).
The CEO pay drawback (rising inequality between the highest and the remaining) is an expression of this discrepancy between actual wages development and productiveness development.
The justification supplied by defenders of the CEO pay state of affairs is that prime pay is required to draw expertise which they declare then spills over into excessive funding within the nation’s productive infrastructure and better productiveness.
In flip, the alleged spill over is that the upper productiveness development supplies the non-inflationary house for employees to take pleasure in actual wages development.
No spill-overs ever appear to come up.
The upper earnings are pocketed by CEOs and shareholders whereas the funding ratio stays weak.
The earnings additionally go into monetary and actual property hypothesis, and productiveness development stays weak.
One of many important modifications that should occur to make sure that one other bout of monetary instability doesn’t hit quickly is that actual wages need to develop in proportion with productiveness development – precisely the reverse of what’s occurring now.
That can require a elementary revision of the way in which govt pay is decided and considerably lowered payout outcomes for the bosses.
The next graph reveals the hole between the reported pay and realised pay for the highest 10 CEO earners.
The ACSI had argued in an earlier Report that:
These figures recommend that the present necessities for reporting govt pay might considerably understate the rewards obtained in a given yr. Statutory reporting is, maybe, disclosing solely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the wealth accruing to senior executives …
It’s clear that there’s a important variation in what the businesses report of their Annual Studies and the additional funds related to money funds on high that aren’t reported.
The following graph reveals the common whole CEO Money Pay within the High 100 firms (purple triangles) and the utmost and minimal values for annually (indicated by the vertical traces).
The ACSI outline the full money pay as “fastened pay, money bonuses and accrual of entitlements”, so roughly what a median employee would possibly obtain annually (the bonuses if they’re fortunate).
There may be appreciable disparity throughout the ranks of the CEOs (from max to min).
There are some sensationally massive salaries and a few quite modest ones (in relative phrases).
The attention-grabbing discovering is that whereas the common is pretty secure (rising slowly lately) the variance that narrowed submit GFC is now rising once more.
The following graph reveals the common whole CEO Statutory Pay within the High 100 firms (purple triangles) and the utmost and minimal values for annually.
The ACSI outline statutory pay as “the full remuneration disclosed for a CEO in an organization’s remuneration report, as required by Australian legislation. It subsequently contains the worth of share-based funds expensed below accounting requirements”.
Don’t be fooled by the completely different scale of the axes in every graph – the statutory pay is a big step up on the full money pay though clearly properly beneath the final word realised earnings (as detailed within the first graph).
Comparisons with different employees
However all of that evaluation doesn’t imply a lot until there may be some context.
This part analyses the relative actions in wages for employees and CEOs.
The following graph reveals the Ratio of CEO Statutory Pay to Complete Common Weekly Earnings (blue line) and Complete Common Weekly Full-time Earnings (purple line) from 2001 to 2017.
The ratio for the previous began at 76.2 in 2001, peaked at 123.1 in 2007 on the top of the ‘greed is sweet’ frenzy and is now again to 76.1 and is on the rise once more.
The ratio for the latter began at 58.6 in 2001, peaked at 93.7 in 2007 and is now again to 56.1, though additionally it is rising once more.
These differentials are all the time justified by the conservatives and the enterprise foyer as being important to draw top of the range executives.
However then we all know that firm efficiency just isn’t carefully linked at instances to the pay that the CEOs get, which places a gap in that argument.
The following graph reveals the salaries of the High 10 CEOs in Australia in comparison with Common Weekly Earnings (Full-time) and Common Weekly Earnings (Complete) for 2017.
Sigma Healthcare runs an aggressive retail pharmacy operation that has pushed all kinds of questionable merchandise onto customers below the guise of wellness.
Its contribution to society is questionable and hardly justifies its boss getting greater than $A32 million a yr relative to a median employee who solely will get somewhat over $A75 thousand per yr?
The query is unanswerable utilizing any logic that’s primarily based on societal well-being, equity, or decency a lot much less productiveness.
The following graph reveals the pay ratios of the High 10 CEOs in Australia in comparison with Common Weekly Earnings (Complete and Full-time).
I’ve reported elsewhere that the expansion within the Wage Value Index in Australia has been at document lows over the past decade.
Please learn my weblog – Australia – actual wages development zero and the rip-off of employees continues – for extra dialogue on this level.
The next graph reveals the motion in Common Weekly Earnings (blue line) and Statutory CEO pay (inexperienced line) each listed to 100 in 2001.
The info can also be deflated utilizing the Shopper Value Index, so displays actual development.
I additionally use Common Weekly Complete Earnings (which supplies some measure of the shift in the direction of part-time work) and a greater indicator of the central tendency within the labour market.
Actual Common Weekly Earnings Complete Earnings (annualised) have grown by simply 14.6 per cent since 2001 (as much as 2025), whereas Statutory CEO Pay in Australia has grown by 14.4 per cent over the identical interval.
The truth that CEO pay development has come off the heady heights it recorded previous to the GFC is a sign of the social strain that has been utilized to firm boards to reel within the extra.
Actual CEO pay exploded within the monetary market frenzy earlier than the disaster and by 2007 their actual pay had risen by 77.8 per cent in comparison with 2001, whereas the common employee’s actual wage rose of 10.1 per cent over the identical interval.
Within the final yr, with the inflationary pressures rising because of the Iran Struggle, the common actual wage has declined whereas the actual CEO pay has risen modestly.
Conclusion
There’s a stream of analysis being printed that demonstrates how fractured trendy (monetary) capitalism has develop into. Within the submit Second World Struggle II interval, the Chilly Struggle warriors within the West lampooned communism on the idea that the capitalist dream was spreading its rewards to the employees in addition to to the house owners of the capital.
The total employment consensus that emerged in that interval, mediated by Social Democratic governments, achieved each productiveness and actual wage development and roughly complete Welfare States, which raised the fabric residing requirements of employees quickly.
At the very least, within the developed world.
There was additionally a way that the regulative surroundings and cultural overtones had saved the capitalist class in examine when it comes to their share of the pie.
After all, there was additionally a way that the exploitation of employees in poorer international locations in Asia, Latin America, Africa and elsewhere was rising to permit the West to fulfill the calls for of extra organised employees within the superior nations for higher residing requirements.
With the abandonment of the complete employment consensus, variously, across the mid Seventies and past (relying on the nation), and the emergence of Monetarism and its micro-economic manifestation (privatisation, deregulation, and so on), that lull in employee exploitation within the superior nations got here to an finish.
Capital has discovered a approach to co-opt the state to work in its favour extra absolutely and abandon its position as a mediator within the class battle, which up till then, following the top of the Struggle, had helped employees enhance working circumstances, pay ranges, and offered social wage advantages within the type of public schooling, public well being, public transport and all remainder of it.
It’s attention-grabbing that the Left have purchased the parable that the state is now not related or has the capability to affect nationwide economies within the face of globalisation and world monetary flows.
However the state by no means went away.
It’s nonetheless as necessary because it ever was.
It’s simply now, that it brazenly works within the pursuits of capital quite than acts because the mediator.
This ongoing CEO wage binge is an indication that capitalism is as soon as once more getting forward of itself.
The truth that the expansion in CEO is extra tempered lately is an indication that there’s a combat again occurring in society in opposition to these excesses.
We noticed one thing like that on the finish of the nineteenth century, which provoked the rise of commerce unions and broad social actions designed to drive elected governments to behave extra broadly when it comes to the pursuits that it served.
These actions led to the Social Democratic period within the West.
The lesson was that employees will solely take a lot and when their materials residing requirements are so threatened, they retaliate and won’t stay passive.
In some unspecified time in the future, this neo-liberal period will likely be delivered to an finish by some comparable sort of employee reorganisation and rebellion.
That’s sufficient for in the present day!
(c) Copyright 2026 William Mitchell. All Rights Reserved.
