The growing gap between rich and poor

Thomas Walkom's newest editorial examines the growing gap between rich and poor, which has been getting progressively worse over the past few decades. The editorial focuses on Toronto economist Armine Yalnizyan's newest report, release by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, entitled "The Rich and the Rest of Us." The study has found that...

The poor are working harder but earning significantly less. Median annual earnings for the 10 per cent of Canadian families at the very bottom of the income scale stood at $3,358 in 1976. By 2004, that figure, adjusted for inflation, had dropped by almost 70 per cent to $1,050.

The not-quite-so-poor aren't doing much better. A stunning 40 per cent of income earners – those making less than $50,000 – are worse off now than in the 1970s, even though they, too, are working longer hours.

The middling classes, those earning between $50,000 and $85,000, are managing to hold their own in terms of pay. But to do so, they've had to speed up the treadmill. The roughly 376,000 Canadian families in the middle of the income scale, for instance, are now working 20 per cent more than in the '70s. But their inflation-adjusted earnings have risen by a mere 2 per cent over three decades.

The rich are laughing. The top 10 per cent of Canadian families, those with median earnings of $166,000, saw their pay packets rise by 30 per cent since the late '70s. But to earn that money, they don't have to work more. In fact, they are working less – by about 5 per cent.

Government social programs and taxes smooth out this gap between rich and poor somewhat. But thanks to the so-called fiscal reforms of the mid-'90s (carried out across the country by Liberal, Conservative and New Democratic governments alike) they do so far less than before.

This is consistant with this article, which identifies the decline in unionized workplaces as one of the key reasons for the growing gap.

Stand up. Organize.