Over the past two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has presented America's leading companies with a historic opportunity to reverse the decades-long trends of widening inequality and shareholder primacy, making change for workers seem possible. The pandemic shifted public sentiment about what workers deserve. Corporate leaders made pledges to adopt 'stakeholder capitalism' and enhance racial and economic equity. A historically tight labor market pressured companies to increase compensation and enhance benefits. And record profits filled company coffers with ample resources to raise pay.

Did companies meet the moment of this pandemic test? This report examines the pay practices and financial outcomes at some of the nation’s best-known companies in sectors spanning retail, delivery, fast food, hotels, and entertainment. Together, the 22 companies employ more than 7 million frontline workers.

This analysis asks: Did these 22 companies pay workers fairly? Did they move to a more inclusive model, in which their frontline workers—not just shareholders and executives—share meaningfully in financial gains? Were financial losses borne equitably? 

This report finds that nearly all of the companies fell short of their commitments to move to a more inclusive model. Overwhelmingly, financial gains benefitted wealthy shareholders and executives, while frontline workers experienced the greatest losses and benefited minimally from company success. Despite the hope and hype, the companies are paying workers only modestly more in real terms than they did before the pandemic—and, for most workers, still not enough to get by.