In yet another indication of the grotesque growth of inequality in Canada in our new Gilded Age a report released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), found that the 100 best-paid chief executive officers in Canada make 246 times what the typical worker earns. They were paid a whopping $14.9 million, on average, in 2022.The report also states that the highest-paid CEOs in Ontario make 298 times the average Ontario worker, at $18.5 million.
In a vile example of just how out-of-control inequality has been allowed to get, the report notes that "The average CEO collects $7,162 an hour. It takes just over eight hours in the new year for the top 100 CEOs to clock in an average of $60,600—what the average worker in Canada makes in an entire year. By 9:27 a.m. on January 2, 2024, Canada’s top CEOs would have already made $60,600 while the average Canadian worker will toil all year long to earn that amount of pay."
9:27 a.m. has already come and gone in Ontario where no doubt everyone returning to work after a short holiday will be thrilled to learn this.
While CEOs are laughing all the way to the golf course in their limos, it turns out that in "2022, the average worker in Canada got an average raise of $1,800, or three per cent, from $58,800 in 2021 to $60,600 in 2022. However, prices went up a whopping 6.8 per cent in 2022 (although much higher for things like food and rent), meaning that workers took a real pay cut of almost four per cent since their money could buy much less than it did in 2021."
The report has various social democratic recommendations for taxation schemes to put a dent in this though in a future piece on The Left Chapter we will be looking at why this approach is, at best, like putting a small bandage on a gapping wound.