SOUTH AFRICA AND INEQUALITY

COSATU president Sdumo Dlamini yesterday said the country's income inequality has deepened within racial groups.

"We cannot rest when we are confronted with the reality that 16 years into democracy redistribution of income has not occurred. Besides the decline in the real incomes of African households between 1995 and 2005, income inequality has increased across the board," he said.
"The top 10 percent of the rich accounted for 33 times the income earned by the bottom 10 percent in 2000. This gap is likely to have worsened, given the fall in the share of employees in national income and the global economic crisis of 2008.
"About 20 percent of South Africans earned less than R800 a month in 2002, with the situation worse for Africans. By 2007 about 71 percent of African female-headed households earned less than R800 a month and 59 percent of these had no income; 58 percent of African male-headed households earn less than R800 a month and 48 percent had no income."

In 2008 the top 20 directors of JSE-listed companies, the overwhelming majority of whom are still white males, earned an average of R59million a year each, while in 2009 the average earnings of an employee in the South African economy was R34000.
Each of the top 20 paid directors in JSE-listed companies earned 1728 times the average income of a South African worker. On average, between 2007 and 2008, these directors experienced 124 percent increase in their earnings, compared to below 10 percent settlements for ordinary workers. In state-owned enterprises where the top 20 directors experienced a 59 percent increase in their earnings, collectively raking in R132223 million. This amounts to R6,6million a director.