---- Tax corporate leaders who profit from pandemic
I would like to provide the following information in order to support your editorial last month proposing a new wealth tax to help pay down the national debt we have all incurred with the pandemic. Those who actually profit from this misfortune must pay a little more than their share (finally!).
Heading into the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada’s 100 highest-paid CEOs made 202 times more than the average worker made in 2019, according to a new studyt from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). While this gap narrowed slightly compared to 2018, when the average top paid CEO made a record 227 times the average Canadian income, this is only the third year it has been higher than 200:1.
This means by 11:17 a.m. on January 4, the first working day of the year, the average top-paid CEO will have made as much money as the average Canadian worker will make all year—about an hour later than they did last year.
Although 2020 CEO pay data won’t be available until spring 2021, early estimates show that roughly half of top paid CEOs will likely keep or even increase their compensation levels, due to the stock market boom during the pandemic. Over a third of top paid CEOs in 2019 ran companies that received the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy in 2020
“Put another way, when a high paid CEO has a less plush year it means putting in a single extra hour of work before lunch on January 4, before netting the yearly income of an average Canadian worker. For the average Canadian worker, a tough year means grave financial insecurity and taking on even more debt to manage,” said CCPA Economist David Macdonald.
Lise Peters
Deschênes / Aylmer