TORONTO - By 12:13 pm on New Year's Day, while many Canadians were still nursing a hangover, Canada"s 100 highest paid CEOs had already pocketed what will take minimum wage workers the rest of 2007 to earn.
The clock keeps ticking. By 9:46 am Jan. 2, as most Canadians begin another year of labour, Canada’s 100 highest paid CEOs will have reaped, on average, $38,010 in pay.
"That equals the average annual earnings of workers in Canada,” says Hugh Mackenzie, research associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). “And it will take them all of 2007 to earn it.”
By the time Canadians tune into the 6:00 news Jan. 2, Canada’s 100 highest paid CEOs will have pocketed nearly $70,000. The highest paid CEO will have pocketed more than $570,000.
“If time is money, are Canada’s 100 highest paid CEOs really worth more in a day than most Canadian workers are in a year?” asks Mackenzie.
“People wonder what the growing gap between the rich and the rest of us looks like. This provides us with a pretty good snapshot of how unevenly the Canadian workforce is valued these days.”
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Timing is Everything: Comparing the earnings of Canada's highest-paid CEOs and the rest of us is availalble on the CCPA web site at http://www.policyalternatives.ca or http://www.growinggap.ca
For information, please contact: Trish Hennessy, director of the CCPA’s Growing Gap Project, c (416) 525-4927.