Saturday, May 22, 2010

Working harder - getting poorer - down under

SOYMB previously posted statistics that Canadians are working longer hours for a smaller share of the wealth. Australia is not exempt from the same trend of inequality

There's no shortage of evidence that most of Australia's new prosperity has trickled up, not down.

According to a study by the Australian National University economist Andrew Leigh, the top 0.1 per cent of earners have more than tripled their share of the total household income pool since 1980.
Between 1993 and 2009, top-100 CEO salaries rose twice as fast as those of their workers, going from about $1 million to around $3 million.

An Australia Institute study in 2004 showed Australians were working the longest hours of the 31 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and there's has been no evidence any subsequent drops.

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