Most of the employee pay issues that the general public is aware of are about companies that pay their workers too little, particularly those that compensate people at a rate that is below the U.S. poverty level, often referred to as a living wage. Corporations singled out include retailers like Walmart and fast-food companies like McDonald’s. Another factor most of these companies share is that they have hundreds of thousands of workers, making them among the largest employers in America.
This dispute has boiled over into what the minimum wage should be. The national figure is $7.25, though it is higher in many states. Legislators continue to move these minimum wages higher, but they have not changed on the national level since 2009.
Some companies pay workers extremely high salaries, often well above $100,000 annually. Workers in this category are often extremely well educated.
To determine the best-paying large company in America, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed companies by their average annual salaries and bonuses as reported by the compensation data site PayScale, current as of October 2021. Only companies with at least 500 employees and 75 employee reviews on PayScale that were also included in workplace industry site Comparably’s Best Compensation 2020 list were considered. Supplemental data on employee count and annual revenue came from SEC filings, annual reports and various other sources.
The results are not surprising. Nearly all the best-paying large companies we considered are tech-related. While two (Bank of America and Citigroup) are financial institutions, the others, even if not tech companies themselves, can be tied to the increased importance of technology in our lives. Such companies are often large and growing, many of them industry leaders, and they offer top compensation, bonuses and perks to attract and keep skilled workers.
The highest-paying company in America is Apple. Here are the details:
- Average salary: $128,000
- Average bonus: $12,000
- Employee count: 147,000
- Annual revenue: $274.52 billion
- Headquarters: Cupertino, California
- Industry: Technology
Click here to see all the best-paying large companies in America.
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