Top 10 listed companies with the biggest income gap

Beginning in 2017, public companies in the US will be required to disclose the ratio of CEO pay to median worker pay, to comply with the new rules adopted by Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

As a preview of how the policy is going to work, Glassdoor has collected thousands of voluntary and anonymous salary reports from employees at S&P 500 companies since 2008 and created a list of companies with the worst CEO to median worker pay ratio.

ALSO READ: CEO salaries to be listed as a ratio of workers’ pay, but will it help?

The numbers showed that the  company with the highest ratio of CEO pay to median worker pay is Discovery Communications with a ratio of 1: 1,951. CEO David M. Zaslav earned US$156 million in 2014 while median worker pay was US$80,000.

The second highest in the list was fast-food chain Chipotle: CEO Steve Ells earned US$28.9 million while the company's median worker pay was US$19,000, making it a pay ratio of 1: 1,522.

Rounding out the top five with the highest pay ratios are retailer CVS Health, CEO Larry J. Merlo who earns 1,192 times more than an average employee, followed by Walmart's CEO Douglas McMillon at 1,133 and retailer Target's  CEO Brian C. Cornell at 939.

The lowest CEO pay ratio was zero at clothing and accessories manufacturer Fossil - the company's CEO Kosta Kartsotis reported $0 compensation in 2014.

According to the company's report to the SEC, Kartsotis refused all forms of compensation for fiscal 2014 because he believes  his primary compensation is met by the continuing growth of the company's stock prices.

The second lowest CEO pay ratios which are also close to 0 are Google CEO Larry Page and Kinder Morgan who accepted US$1 gesture salary.

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