Newly released federal data is shining a spotlight on a stark pay divide at The Walt Disney Company, revealing that salaries offered to highly skilled foreign workers on H-1B visas are often more than double the pay of the average U.S. employee at Disney World and other company operations.
The information compiled by Business Insider from 55 foreign visa applications filed with the U.S. Department of Labor between October 2024 and June 2025 shows that Disney is paying six-figure salaries for a range of specialty roles, largely in technology and finance.
The Walt Disney Company employed approximately 233,000 workers in 2024, with 82,000 employees located here at Walt Disney World. The Disney Parks and Experiences, which is more than just WDW, earned $34.15 billion in revenue for fiscal year 2024, with operating income for this same segment being $9.27 billion.
High-Skill Visas vs. Median Employee Pay
The most recent data from Disney’s 2025 Proxy Statement shows that the company’s median employee earned $55,111 in fiscal 2024. This typical employee is described as working a “full-time hourly role in parks” and has been with the Company for over seven years. For context, the living wage in Florida for a single adult with no children is $48,683, according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, highlighting that the median employee earns slightly above this basic cost-of-living estimate.
In contrast, the salaries listed on the H-1B visa applications for highly specialized roles far exceed the median wage. Examples of the proposed pay for these non-U.S. workers include:
- Senior Machine Learning Scientist: $177,436.56
- Lead Data Engineer, Streaming: $188,875.73
- Technology Manager: Up to $193,766.26
- Associate Ride Control Software Engineer: $134,700
- Senior Master Planner, Parks & Resorts: $113,500
- Senior Product Manager: $170,150 to $172,932.14
- Technology Manager: $162,040.76 to $193,766.26
For some of its top technical talent, Disney’s compensation is competitive with other tech and media giants. Filings showed software engineering managers earning up to $208,000 and directors up to $230,500.
While the H-1B program is designed to bring in foreign talent for “specialty occupations,” the data underscores a growing pay disparity between the company’s technology, engineering, and data science sectors, where the visa workers are placed, and its vast service-oriented workforce.
The specialized roles filled by H-1B workers are critical to operations but are not the low-wage, high-volume positions like serving popcorn, housekeeping, park maintenance, or the myriad of roles that keep the park open and are often associated with the Walt Disney World operations.
However, the sheer gap between the highly-paid specialists and the median employee salary, where the latter is roughly a quarter of some of the H-1B offers, highlights the multi-tiered compensation structure within the global entertainment conglomerate.
Disney CEO Bob Iger made just over $41 million — about 746 times as much, per the proxy statement.
Federal Data Shines Light on Disney’s Internal Pay Gap Between Skilled and Frontline Workers
