Growing gap (between rich and poor).

• Author: Yalnizyan, Armine

Look around the world, and you will see example after example of nations conducting a risky social experiment of "letting the market rule." However, not all societies have succumbed to these pressures -- some resist having market principles determine their quality of life.

This document examines the way "letting the market rule" is destabilizing Canadian society.

It's About Value

The starkest inequalities arise between corporate executives, who are granting themselves exorbitant pay increases, and their workers, who face the threat of wage rollbacks and job insecurity.

* The top ten CEOs in Canada each brought home more than $10 million last year.

* On average, the top 100 CEOs saw a 56% increase in compensation last year.

* Wages are not keeping up with inflation. Many people have had their pay frozen during the 1990s, even unionized workers. Federal public servants have had one pay increase in the 1990s (3% in 1993).

* People who work in unionized environments (such as those packing meat and making socks) are being pressured to take wage rollbacks and lose hours of work. In the unorganized environment, workers are less able to resist making such concessions.

* Welfare rates, welfare eligibility and/or shelter allowances have been reduced in almost every province since 1995.

Among executives in Canada, Robert Gratton (of Power Financial Corporation) received the highest compensation (salary, bonuses, other compensation, and realized stock options), bringing home $27.4 million in 1997. His stock options, the "long-term incentive" his company provided him so he could do the best possible job, were cashed in at $23.5 million. His salary alone was pegged at $1,758,000. It would take 47 years for the average person to make that much, based on the current average annual earnings of a full-time, full-year worker.

We are super-valuing a few, devaluing the many.

What the Markets Gave Us: Individual outcomes

Polarization of earnings among Canadians is on the rise, especially among men. Men under the age of 35 have seen a remarkable, perhaps unprecedented, erosion in what their work is worth compared to older age groups, and compared to what "under 35ers" were worth in 1980. Male workers under the age of 25 have seen the greatest decline.

While about two-thirds of the employed labour force worked a full-time 35-40 hour a week job a generation ago, now only half the workers have such jobs. About one in five jobs are part-time (double the number from...