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Can Employers Afford to Pay More?
What if the biggest companies in America split their profits with the people who actually earn them? The math is more striking than you'd expect.
From Idea to Action
The chapter runs the actual numbers on a simple question: what would happen if major corporations gave half their annual profits directly to their workforce, instead of just shareholders and executives?
The Math, Company by Company
Half of Apple’s 2024 profit split among its 164,000 employees: $285,792 per worker. Amazon, split among 1.56 million employees: $19,022. Microsoft: $163,800. JPMorgan Chase: $87,500. Even Walmart, with tighter margins and 2.1 million employees, works out to $3,693 per worker — enough to raise a $25,000/year employee’s income by nearly 15%.
By the numbers: Bank of America’s math works out to $59,959 extra per employee per year; Home Depot’s to $15,579.
This Isn't Hypothetical — Some Companies Already Do It
Costco, under co-founder Jim Sinegal, built its reputation on paying above-industry wages and treating workers as a priority over short-term stock gains. Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase both set $20/hour minimums. NVIDIA offers 22 weeks of fully paid parental leave for birth parents. JUST Capital’s own research found the top-scoring companies on worker treatment outperformed the Russell 1000 by 4.7%, while the bottom-scoring group underperformed by 4.3%.
Answering the Obvious Objection
The standard pushback — that profit-sharing would tank shareholder value or corporate stability — doesn’t hold up well: companies would still keep half their profits, many businesses already operate on margins well under 50%, and lower turnover plus higher productivity offset real costs.
Sources & Further Reading
The Costco culture claims trace to SmartBrief’s reporting on Costco’s approach to shareholder capitalism; the wage-comparison data comes from JUST Capital’s ranking of the top companies for employee treatment.