I am curious why you might find an employee preference for a music benefit objectionable. Pay ratio does not seem very illuminating. Starbucks, at 1211:1, is less lopsided than General Electric Company, with a median worker pay of $53,928, or Activision, with a median of $99,100. The ratio reflects the reality of international retail work. Hence the median employee is "a part-time barista in Canada" who made $12,113 in 2020. Schultz retired as Starbucks CEO in 2018. Kevin Johnson took over and was compensated $20.4 million in 2021 (base salary $1.61M, stock awards $14.76M, incentive bonus $4M). Presumably the board seeks a CEO that will maximize shareholder benefit. Suppose instead that the board sought a CEO to maximize employee benefit. Which should they prefer? 1) The status quo. Pay an experienced executive twenty million to keep the ship on course. 2) Fire Johnson and hire the most-qualified executive willing to work for $5 million in total compensation. Distribute the savings equally among the 383,000 employees. That's a bonus of $3.35 per month, a third of the value of a Spotify premium membership. Trust that the discount CEO will manage the company well and not lose market share to competitors, resulting in closed stores and laid off staff. 3) Fire Johnson and find the most-qualified executive willing to work for free. Hope for the best. If you favor option #3, you're in luck. Johnson retired in April and Schultz took over as interim CEO for $1 in compensation.If you ask our people, what are the two or three biggest benefits that Starbucks provides, No. 1 is Spotify. That’s what it is. The second is Lyra Health, and that is mental health that we’re providing to our people.
Partners frequently work in flexible, part-time roles, which has the effect of lowering the annual total compensation for our median employee. In addition, Starbucks is a global company, with approximately 120,000 partners outside the U.S. Therefore, the median compensation disclosed below is based on our global workforce and is not designed to capture the median compensation of our U.S. partners.