Tuesday, July 12, 2011

CEOs making millions

The Congress of South African Trade Unions has noted with anger the report that in 2010 the median pay of executive directors of the top 40 JSE-listed companies increased by 23.3%, to R4.8 million.

The Naledi Research Paper on the Living Wage, presented to the COSATU Central Committee in June, spells out the reality. The top 10% of earners receive around 94 times more than the bottom 10%. The poorest 10% share R1.1 billion between them while the richest 10% share R381 billion, 51% of the total.

The inequality has a marked racial dimension. Whereas the African population accounts for 79.4% of the population and 76.8% of households, it only accounts for 41.2% of household income from work and social grants. In contrast the white population account for only 9.2% of the population and 12.8% of households yet receives 45.3% of household income, five times their proportion of the population.

Inequality is further aggravated by the fact that the poorest have to spend a much higher percentage of their incomes on basic essentials like food and clothing.

No comments: