Auto CEOs Make About 300 Times What Their Median Worker Is Paid. Here’s How That Stacks Up.

By one measure—the ratio of the CEO’s pay to the median worker’s—automakers have a wider pay gap than most large companies. And over the past four years, the gap at the three has widened.

The leaders of Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, all targets of current UAW strikes, received between $21 million and $29 million in compensation last year. The median CEO pay package for S&P 500 companies was $14.5 million last year.

The UAW originally proposed a 40% wage increase for members, which the union said matched the average compensation hike that Detroit automotive executives received over the past four years.

The average compensation figure cited by the UAW is inflated by the increase of more than 70% for Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares, who oversees a much larger company today than he did four years ago. Tavares was CEO of Peugeot S.A. in 2019 when the company agreed to merge with Fiat Chrysler, creating what was later renamed Stellantis.

In 2022, the three CEOs earned around 300 times what the median employee earned. That puts the automakers in the top third of about 500 large companies by that measure, according to information compiled from securities filings by data provider MyLogIQ.

CEO pay varies widely by industry, and much of it is tied to stock awards. Technology and media chiefs are often among the highest paid, thanks to such grants.

All three automakers also ranked in the top third in pay ratio among U.S. companies that they listed in their securities filings as peers for compensation benchmarking.

Compared with other employers with big union workforces, the three automakers’ pay ratios were higher than railroads and airlines. Delivery giant United Parcel Service and machinery maker Caterpillar had pay gaps that were comparable to the automakers.

In part, the ratios reflect the size of the three automakers, which each reported revenue of around $150 billion in their most recent fiscal years, said Robin Ferracone, CEO of Farient Advisors, an executive compensation and governance consulting firm.

“Size matters," she said. “The size of the company is indicative of the scope of the job, so if you have a very large company, those CEOs tend to get paid more." By revenue, the automakers are more than twice as big as the biggest airlines, she noted.

Pay ratios, which were mandated for disclosure by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2018, are a function of two numbers: a CEO’s pay divided by the pay of the median employee—the person in the middle when the workforce is lined up from highest-paid to lowest. Both figures are calculated similarly, taking into account not just salary but bonuses, equity awards and more.

In industries that primarily employ highly skilled and well-compensated workers, such as utilities or pharmaceuticals, pay ratios tend to be relatively low. In industries with many low-wage workers, such as retail and fast food, ratios often are correspondingly high.

The UAW has proposed that Ford, General Motors and Stellantis raise workers’ pay by more than 30% over four years. “We’re asking for our fair share in this economy," Fain said in a recent television interview.

While strikes continue at three plants, the UAW decided Friday to spare Ford from additional labor stoppages while calling for more strikes at the other two automakers. The move signaled that a tentative agreement could be close between Ford and the union, although the car company said Sunday that negotiations continue and significant gaps remain on key economic issues.

GM and Stellantis also bargained through the weekend and talks are expected to continue on Monday.

In 2022, Ford’s current CEO, Jim Farley, earned 21% more than his predecessor did in 2019, while GM’s Mary Barra earned around 34% more than she did four years ago.

Under the current contract negotiated in 2019, full-time unionized factory workers start off at around $18 an hour and can earn up to $32 an hour.

UAW base wages have risen an average 6% since their last contract in 2019, the union said. In that time, vehicle prices are up almost 23% and overall consumer prices 19%, according to the Labor Department.

After accounting for inflation, auto workers’ wages have fallen about 5.4% between 2019 and July 2023, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank.

Labor costs for union workers at the three automakers, which include wages and benefits, amount to more than $60 an hour, exceeding the estimated $55 average at nonunion plants and $45 at nonunion Tesla, according to Barclays analysts.

Ford’s Farley last year earned around $21 million, or 281 times the company’s median employee earnings, compared with the multiple of 157 that his predecessor Jim Hackett earned in 2019 when the auto workers signed their last contract. Last year, employee median pay was $74,691.

At General Motors, Barra made $29 million last year. That was 362 times the median employee earnings of $80,034, and up from a comparable multiple of 203 times in 2019.

At Stellantis, the global parent of Chrysler, Dodge and other brands, Tavares last year made around $25 million, or 365 times the average employee pay of $68,712 at current exchange rates.

In 2019, the CEO earned 232 times the pay of the average employee. As a Netherlands-based company, Stellantis adheres to Dutch disclosure rules and reports average employee pay, not median pay.

Stellantis’s CEO compensation is competitively aligned with other CEOs in its peer group, a company spokesperson said, adding that about 90% of Tavares’s pay is tied to performance metrics and that the company distributed about two billion euros, the equivalent of $2.12 billion, to employees in a profit-sharing plan last year.

Ford didn’t respond to requests for comment. GM didn’t provide a comment.

UAW members have seen their counterparts at other unions win significant pay increases. American Airlines pilots in August ratified a new contract that included wage increases of more than 40% over four years, and UPS agreed to increase top hourly pay for unionized workers by 18% over five years, pushing the average full-time driver to $170,000 annually in pay and benefits.

Write to Lauren Weber at Lauren.Weber@wsj.com and Theo Francis at theo.francis@wsj.com