07/18/2025
McDonald's CEO, Christopher Kempczinski, embodies everything wrong with the American economy.
Hourly wages for McDonald's crew members typically range from $11.54 to $15.14, according to ZipRecruiter. Shift managers earn around $17/hour or $34,000 a year.
Meanwhile, the CEO hauled in a total compensation of $19.2 million . This includes salary, stock awards, and other compensation. His compensation is 1,212 times the median employee pay at McDonald's.
Worse, the fast food empire is splurging on stock buybacks and dividends rather than give their hardworking staff a pay raise. McDonald's has spent $7 billion on stock buybacks in recent years. The company also distributed nearly $4 billion in dividends to shareholders. Must be to be a shareholder. Do nothing, sit back, and watch the quarterly checks roll, which have been increasing every year. McDonald's payout ratio is 60.4% which means that 60.4% of the company's earnings are paid out as dividends.
The amounts are so staggering they are difficult to put into perspective. If the $11 billion of buybacks and dividends were divided equally among McDonald's 150,000 employees in the US, each employee would receive a check for $73,000.
The working class cannot survive on poverty page while one people on top extracts hundreds of millions in total pay over their career and are compensated precisely to the degree they enrich shareholders.
It is the employees who ship the food to franchises, it is employees who take orders, it is employees who prepare the food. It is employees who clean the bathrooms and restaurants. It is employees who create the wealth. NOT the CEO or shareholders.
