If 2008, is like 2006,(the most recent year for which data are available) Canadians will work full-time all 2008 to earn an average wage of $38,998. But by 10:33 a.m. January 2, the 100 best-paid CEOs of public companies in Canada will have already pocketed that average Canadian wage. And they will continue to earn the average Canadian wage every nine hours and 33 minutes for the rest of the year.
Statistics Canada reported recently that the earned income of the “average” Canadian — the so-called median income — was the same in 2004 as in 1982. After we subtract inflation to keep the purchasing power of a dollar roughly constant, it turns out that median income, before taxes, did not rise at all over those 22 years. Yet during that same time the Canadian economy grew, in real per capita terms, by more than half. But only the very well-paid - those above the 90th percentile of the income distribution - saw any significant increase in earned income; and the higher up the earnings ladder, the greater the growth. What has been going on?
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