Occupy Wall Street, Bay Street and the street nearest you.

摘要

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released a study in early January highlighting the growing income disparities between the richest and poorest Canadians. Income tax files from 2007 show that the average income of the top 1% of income earners was over dollar400,000 compared to about dollar44,000 for the average Canadian, almost a tenfold difference. Those who laboured at the minimum wage earned an average of less than dollar20,000. As expected, at the upper extreme of the distribution the discrepancy is even starker: the 100 richest individuals (0.01% of income tax filers) earned 189 times more than the average Canadian in 2010. Between 2009 and 2010, total average compensation increased by 27% among these 100 individuals compared to 1.1% for average Canadians. Incomes have grown over 80% among the 100 richest compared to about 5% for the rest of Canadians since 1998.