How Does Your Salary Rank

I saw the story below on MSN/Sympatico Finance that was prepared by John Caspar, Vice President and Investment Advisor with CIBC Wood Gundy, a division of CIBC World Markets Inc. John is the money analyst for the CTV News in Vancouver.

I found it fascinating and quite frightening for the future of Windsor after reading some of the stories about public employee salaries, the loss of high-paying union jobs and the call centre jobs that Windsor seems to be gaining.

It should be pretty clear that we cannot build an economy in Windsor based on call centre employees whose salaries will generally be under the median income of $12-12.50 per hour.

The "59 of 95, or 62 per cent, of city employees in the high earning bracket are police." They rank in the top 3.4% of wage earners. The chief's salary of "of $189,659.72 including taxable benefits" puts him in the top 1.3%. He was joined by John Skorobohacz, Windsor's CAO. As for other police officers:

• "With any kind of overtime or taxable benefits, our staff sergeants are going to be on there," Stannard said.
  
  "It's not going to get any better."

Those in the .07% of top incomes in Caanda included Ross Paul, President of the University of windsor, Dr. Martin Girash, Windsor Regional Hospital CEO, Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital CEO Neil McEvoy, Dr. Allen Heimann, medical officer of health, Ontario Court judges - - Guy DeMarco, Micheline Rawlins, Sharman Bondy, Harry Momotiuk, Douglas Phillips and Samuel Zaltz.

Our Gazelle minder is in the top 1.3% with his $169,000 salary.

Take a look at the story and see where you ranked:

• Surprise! We don't make that much money
  
  By John Caspar
  April 04, 2007
  
  ... how much money are people making out there, and where do you stack up?
  
  All the data here is for the 2004 calendar year, which is the most recent income data available.
  
  ... we'll start with median total income. The median is the mid-point, where half the included population is higher, and half is lower. “Total income” in this case includes income from employment, investment, government transfers, private pensions, registered retirement savings plans and other income... And the median total income for Canadians with an income was…$24,400. If you made more than $24,400 in 2004, congratulations, you were in the top half of income earners.
  
  Now, before you calculate that fully half of Canadians work for less than $12.20 an hour, bear in mind that “total income” will capture part-time employees, after-school student jobs, etc. Those people will pull down the average with a low income that may not be representative of hardship...
  
  The median employment income for Canadians in 2004 was $25,400. That's just counting the working folks... In 2004, you were in the top third of incomes if you made more than…are you ready? $35,000...
  
  Only 19.8 percent of Canadians with an income made $50,000 or more in 2004.
  
  Now, although a bit over 12 percent of individuals had incomes between $50,000 and $75,000, the atmosphere thins out pretty quickly above that. Only 7.6 percent of people had incomes of $75,000 or more in 2004. Only 3.4 percent made $100,000 or more. And by the time we get to the $150,000 or more category, we're down to just 1.3 percent of income recipients.
  
  People with 2004 incomes of $200,000 or more were a rounding error: only 0.7 percent made $200,000 or more. And you can be 99.5 percent sure that any randomly selected Canadian earned less than $250,000.
  
  Those are the stats for individuals. The nice folks at Stats Canada also track the incomes of various family groupings, so we can get an idea of where entire households compare by income. “Couple families” are couples (married or common-law, including same-sex couples) living at the same address, with or without children... The median total income from all sources for all members of such families in 2004 was $64,800. Less than a quarter of such households had total incomes of $100,000 or more. And just over 8 percent had incomes of $150,000 or greater.