I was inspired to write this blog post after reading some posts on the National Post about the sunshine list, disclosure of public salaries, and other recent election articles. So, after reading the comments, and doing some digging on the state of the public sector in Ontario I realized just how much trouble we are in.
Yes, yes, Mr Johnny-Come-Lately over here, but I think what I found out would shock anyone. Sure, we all know there are lot of public sector workers in Ontario. And we all know there are a lot people on the sunshine list as well. But I doubt realized just how well off the public sector is in comparison to the rest of the population of Ontario.
Yes Virginia, it's more then just a defined benefits pension and great dental and health.
FACT: 28% of all tax filers in Ontario earning more than one hundred thousand dollars a year are employed in the public sector.
According to StatsCan, there are 5,840,200 full time workers in Ontario (private/public sector). Armine Yalnizyan of Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, states only about 6% of tax filers in Ontario have an income greater then 100K.
So, let's do some math:
- 5840200 * 0.06 = 350,412 workers in Ontario earning more than one hundred thousand dollars a year.
So let's do some more math:
- 97796 / 350412 * 100 = 27.908 %
FACT: Nearly 9% of all public sector employees are on the Sunshine list.
If I take this to include just public sector employees in Ontario, there are 1,107,042 public sector employees working in Ontario at the provincial and municipal level according to StatsCan. (Note, you may need to add some filters for geographic location and to filter out federal public sector).
And since math is so fun, let's do some more:
- 97796 / 1107042 * 100 = 8.83 %
You are four times more likely to be earning more than one hundred thousand dollars a year if you work for the public sector vs private sector. And this is not counting benefits or pension.
It's a great gig if you can get it, no wonder its a prime target for Tim Hudak to make cuts in the quest to slay the deficit and conquer the debt.
3 comments:
There aren't a lot of fry cooks, Walmart greeters or janitors in the public service though. Public service jobs do tend to pay more, but only because there are few unskilled positions. Those at the low end of the scale do have it better than their private sector counterparts because of pensions and benefits, but those at the high end are more often than not payed less than equivalent private sector positions, even when you factor in benefits. So yes, there are a lot of public servants on the sunshine list. But why shouldn't they be payed well? Are you complaining about the salaries of their private sector counterparts as well?
Hey Anon,
I am not sure I agree with your assessment. I would say many people in the public sector are basically low level public service positions. Ie, data entry clerks and paper pushers. I don't think checking your passport application, ei application, or other front line positions count as skilled.
According to the Fraser Institute public sector workers enjoy between a 9.5% and 12% wage premium vs equivalent private sector. This isn't counting benefit related compensation like medical, dental, or pension.
If I was a shareholder of the public company, and thought the compensation was too high for the CxO level (or board), then yes I would.
Though to be frank, I am not sure what that has to do with the clear premium you get for working for the government.
How much of that 9.5 to 12% is merely due to the fact that they belong to a union? It is a well known fact that union wages enjoy a wage premium due to the effectiveness of collective bargaining on average. What does the public sector wage compare to union labour across the province?
Comparing exploited non-labour workers to union public service is kind of underhanded, and it appears that is what the Fraser Institute is doing with those numbers. However, digging deeper in, they do account for unionization later on:
"After controlling for individual differences among workers in the two sectors such as education, marital status, occupation, job tenure, and unionization, the author found that both male and female public sector worker receive a wage premium: 5.4 per cent for men and 19.8 per cent for women."
So the numbers are different once taking that into account. Interesting that marital status is taken into account...why on earth would that have anything to do with anything? I wonder what the numbers are without taking marital status into account.
So the big question is kind of this:
it is clear that there is a 14.4% premium on women's labour in the public sector, that serves as an effective subsidy to reduce gender inequality. Is this more effective than other means of addressing gender inequality in the province, is it *worth* addressing gender inequality in this province in this way, and is doing so worth the additional 5.4% cost of doing so?
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