“Fair” is a subjective term when it comes to compensation. Does someone whose leadership drives a company’s stock price to new heights deserve compensation that’s exponentially higher than the people working for him or her? Sometimes, perhaps.

At some point, though, the ratio between pay for folks at the top of the org chart and the rank-in-file becomes a little harder to defend. The overall compensation of quite a few U.S. executives last year was a multiple of several thousand times higher than that of the typical worker’s. Does that seem reasonable to you? There are caveats, of course: At some large multinationals, employee pay might reflect a significant number of workers who are employed overseas in emerging markets.

…As part of this special report, SEC compliance and disclosure intelligence company MyLogIQ has complied this list of the 15 companies on the Russell 3000 Index with the largest gap between the CEO and the media worker, based on reported 2022 total compensation: