As the coronavirus pandemic upended the restaurant industry in March 2020, fast-casual burrito chain Chipotle instituted a 10% appreciation pay bonus for employees willing to risk their health to keep working during the crisis. For frontline workers earning around $12 or $13 an hour, that amounted to a pay boost of a dollar and change.

Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol got a raise, too from $33.5 million to $38 million after the companys board waived performance rules that would have dragged down his compensation for the year. Niccol ended up reaping nearly 3,000 times the annual $13,127 pay of Chipotles median worker.

The haul for Niccol is one of several CEO pay packages highlighted in a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, showing how companies tweaked their compensation rules during the pandemic to keep executive pay high as regular workers struggled. The report analyzed pay data from Carnival Cruise Line, fast-food giant Yum Brands, Coca-Cola and Olive Garden parent company Darden Restaurants, among others.

Sarah Anderson, who co-authored the report with Sam Pizzigati, found that of the 100 S&P 500 companies with the lowest median worker pay, more than half bent their own rules last year to jack up their executives paychecks. She said many of them cited the need to retain talented CEOs.

Its part of this whole great man theory ... if we dont bend over backwards and pay these guys outrageous sums, they will abandon ship even in the middle of a national crisis, Anderson said in an interview. The whole retention justification has always seemed absurd to me, but its even more absurd in a year when frontline employees have proved how essential they are.

Chipotle announced this week that it would be hiking its minimum wage to $15 per hour as it looks to expand its workforce. A company spokesperson said in a statement that Niccols 2020 pay was based on a competitive analysis of CEO pay levels, and that the payout includes a one-time modification that is not reflective of his ongoing pay package.

Without that one-off change, the ratio of Niccols pay to the median Chipotle workers would be a more modest 1,129 to 1, the spokesperson noted.

Under Brians leadership, Chipotles stock has increased more than 300% and the market cap grew $30.6 billion, from $8.2 billion in early 2018 to $38.8 billion at the end of 2020, the spokesperson said.