Rittenmeyer, who declined to be interviewed, isn’t the only CEO facing scrutiny. Grocery store chain Kroger Co., under fire from employees and unions over its plan to scrap its extra $2 per hour in hazard pay this weekend, disclosed that CEO Rodney McMullen was awarded $21.1 million in compensation for 2019. Compare that to a typical worker, who got less than $27,000 in pay and benefits.

A Kroger spokeswoman pointed out the company’s average wage is $15 an hour and that it offers a range of safety precautions, from testing to emergency leave, to employees.

All across the country, as millions of Americans are thrown out of work, tough questions are once again being asked about executive pay.

Airlines like United Airlines Holdings Inc. and Southwest Airlines Co. began announcing CEO pay reductions in March, and dozens of companies across industries have followed. Some, including General Electric Co.’s Larry Culp, will forgo their entire salary for the rest of 2020.

On one hand, the moves are a conscious, if symbolic, display of solidarity and shared sacrifice, an effort by the bosses not to appear tone deaf. But on the other, they lay bare the gaping economic disparities between those at the very top of corporate America and everyone else.

“If you’re going to ask your staff to give up salary, so should you,” said Charles Elson, director of the University of Delaware’s center for corporate governance. “The question is, how will the rest of the pay package play out?”

CEOs at S&P 500 companies receive on average $1.3 million in salary, roughly 20 times the median U.S. household income. But that sum only accounts for 10% of their total compensation. The rest comes in bonuses and stock-based incentives typically tied to measures like equity returns or profits. Those payouts are adjusted based on how goals are met.

For many executives in the hardest-hit industries, that means making do with perhaps $1 million instead of $10 million. But others still have a shot at hefty payouts, regardless of cuts to base pay, if stocks recover.

Of course, the stock market isn’t the economy. But it can often magnify and distort — in a fun-house mirror sort of way — the winners and losers in it.

After plummeting in March, stocks last month jumped the most since 1987. The rebound came as U.S. companies cut a record 20.5 million jobs, causing the jobless rate to reach 14.7%.