Two major Nevada-based gaming companies are being spotlighted in a new report criticizing excessive CEO compensation at large corporations. The “Executive Excess” report, published by the Institute for Policy Studies and Inequality.org, focused on what they refer to as the “Low-Wage 100” — the S&P 500 corporations with the lowest median wages. The report reveals that in 2023, CEOs at these companies earned, on average, 538 times more than a typical worker, meaning that for every $1 earned by a rank-and-file employee, the CEO received $538.
The report condemned this disparity, stating, “All employees contribute to corporate profits, but too many of our country’s top-tier corporations are doing a spectacularly poor job of sharing the rewards.” It highlighted that across all S&P 500 corporations, the average CEO-to-worker pay ratio last year was 268 to 1.
Among those highlighted in the report were Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts International. Caesars reported a CEO-to-worker pay ratio of 560 to 1, with CEO Thomas Reeg earning $18.6 million while the median employee salary was just $33,250. MGM Resorts International, meanwhile, had a pay ratio of 374 to 1, with CEO William Hornbuckle receiving $17 million while the typical worker made $45,502.
Las Vegas Sands, another Nevada-based company that no longer operates on the Strip but still maintains its headquarters in the state, also made the list. CEO Robert Goldstein earned $21.9 million, while the median worker took home $41,185 in 2023.
For context, the largest gap between CEO and median worker pay was at Nike, where CEO John Donahoe II made 975 times more than the average worker, earning $32.8 million compared to a median salary of $33,646.
Gaming industry CEOs have long faced criticism for their outsized pay. A separate analysis from the shareholder advocacy group As You Sow previously listed both Reeg and Goldstein among the most overpaid CEOs. That report considered not only CEO-worker pay ratios but also factors like shareholder returns and the level of shareholder opposition to CEO pay packages.
The Institute for Policy Studies report also pointed out that most companies, with only seven exceptions, used profits from the past five years for stock buybacks rather than reinvestment in capital improvements. Nearly half of these companies spent more on buybacks than on long-term investments. Stock buybacks, which were once illegal, allow corporate executives to inflate short-term gains for themselves and shareholders, often at the expense of workers and sustainable business growth, according to the report.
Caesars Entertainment was one of the few companies that did not engage in stock buybacks between 2019 and 2023. However, MGM Resorts spent $8.2 billion on buybacks during that same period.
The report concluded by suggesting potential policy reforms, including taxing and restricting stock buybacks, imposing higher tax rates on companies with extreme CEO pay ratios, and using federal contracts and subsidies to disincentivize corporations from maintaining large pay gaps between executives and workers.
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