The survey found that roughly two-thirds of Americans say companies are doing a poor job of avoiding a large pay gap between chief executives and average employees. New poll.
The survey, conducted by Bentley University and Gallup and released Tuesday, found that a majority of respondents believe companies aren’t doing enough to prevent pay disparities between top and bottom-ranking employees.
Just under 10% of respondents said companies were doing a “good” job to avoid pay disparity, 21% said they were doing a “reasonable” job, and just 4% said companies were doing a “great” job.
Overall, respondents felt the same regardless of age, race, ethnicity or income.
Among partisan groups, Democrats were the most critical of the pay gap: About 81% of Democrats believe companies don’t try hard enough to avoid it. Just under 65% of independents agreed, while 47% of Republican respondents agreed.
Gallup noted that average CEO compensation in 2023 rose to $16.3 million, up 12.6% from last year.
More than half of respondents, 56%, said it is “extremely important” for companies to avoid large pay gaps — a figure that has remained consistent since 2022.
In the 2024 survey, only 5% said it was not important at all.
The survey was conducted among 5,835 adults between April 29 and May 6 and has a margin of error of 2.1 percentage points.
