The sunshine list

[Bob Macadoo]

And none of that has anything to do with the current discussion and the point that I was making, which is that $100k income in 1996 is $145k today. The Sunshine List, however, stayed at $100k and people are complaining that it has grown. Well, no crap it grew. The cap didn't change with inflation.

The argument against that though is has been quoted in other places median income has not risen......inflation be damned, so why should the Sunshine list threshold grow. To be fair....the list threshold should grow as median income grows.

[Smallc]

Median income in Canada has outpaced inflation.

[Bob Macadoo]

Median income in Canada has outpaced inflation.

In the last decade.....avg wage increase 9%......inflation 10%. I retract my statement.....increase the sunshine threshold 90% of inflation. Thanks for the counter argument.

[Smallc]

In the last decade.....avg wage

Since forever, average and median are different things.

[Bob Macadoo]

Since forever, average and median are different things.

Thanks for the semantical argument.......tangerine meet tangelo. Goodbye.

[Argus]

In the last decade.....avg wage increase 9%......inflation 10%. I retract my statement.....increase the sunshine threshold 90% of inflation. Thanks for the counter argument.

The list outrages not because of the magical $100k number but because it's more than double the average income in Ontario.

One would suppose those earning six figure salaries were extremely well-educated -- well beyond the norm - with hard to find skills in high demand.

And we get bus drivers, cops, firefighters and teachers. None of these jobs are in high demand or require rare skills. All are oversupplied with a vast number of eager applicants.

[cybercoma]

The argument against that though is has been quoted in other places median income has not risen......inflation be damned, so why should the Sunshine list threshold grow. To be fair....the list threshold should grow as median income grows.

That's a good point. The median income has grown nominally though. It hasn't grown when it's held in constant dollars.

[cybercoma]

The list outrages not because of the magical $100k number but because it's more than double the average income in Ontario.

One would suppose those earning six figure salaries were extremely well-educated -- well beyond the norm - with hard to find skills in high demand.

And we get bus drivers, cops, firefighters and teachers. None of these jobs are in high demand or require rare skills. All are oversupplied with a vast number of eager applicants.

All of those unskilled firefighters, teachers, and cops.....

[Bob Macadoo]

All of those unskilled firefighters, teachers, and cops.....

Well they aren't Revenue Canada's finest contract temp employee.......

[Argus]

Well they aren't Revenue Canada's finest contract temp employee.......

Cut their salary by a third and you'd still have hundreds of applicants for every position.

Edited April 21, 2015 by Argus

[Bob Macadoo]

Cut their salary by a third and you'd still have hundreds of applicants for every position.

So do McDonald's......what's your point.......employer's like cheaper labour?

[Scotty]

Courses most certainly are not taught by TAs. There's a problem right now with courses being increasingly taught by adjuncts. That's not the same thing as a TA, not even close. An adjunct is someone who's already a PhD and working part-time. TAs are student assistants.

Excuse me for mistaken the term for those who teach classes while the extremely well-paid professors DON'T.

Who's they? Professors teach a full course load, unless they apply for a lighter course load or are on sabbatical.

A report on the teaching workloads of professors in chemistry, philosophy and economics at 10 universities by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, an arms-length agency of the Ontario government, found the average professor teaches only three courses per year — typically two in one semester and one in the other — even though about 20 per cent appear to be involved in no research or scholarly writing.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/03/11/ontario_professors_should_have_to_teach_more_courses_reports_say.html

Both of these things require the presentation of some sort of deliverables in the process, i.e., publications,

I am not interested in paying professors to write scholarly papers nobody reads. They should be paid to teach.

[Scotty]

So do McDonald's......what's your point.......employer's like cheaper labour?

The question is do you find it acceptable to pay a police constable ten billion dollars a year?

Clearly not. We'd have only one cop to police the whole country. At $100k per cop we certainly have more than that, but a lot less than other countries like the UK and France which don't feel their police officers should be driving around in Mercedes and BMWs. The same goes for firefighters. These are blue collar jobs which don't merit rates which are considerably higher than most university educated professionals get.

This country has a major problem with the money it pays to its public servants. Europe, even Western socialist Europe, doesn't pay its teachers, nurses, firefighters, cops, etc. such high salaries. The result is they can afford better public services than we can because they can have more people working in those positions.

[cybercoma]

I am not interested in paying professors to write scholarly papers nobody reads. They should be paid to teach.

That's simply because you don't understand what it is that professors do. You obviously see them like some sort of advanced high school teachers, when that's not their job. PhDs do research. Many of them not even in academia. As broadly speaking as possible, they pursue new knowledge. Whether you see value in that or not is inconsequential. Any reasonable person would understand that this serves a very important function for society. Those "scholarly articles" that you claim are not read are actually informing everything from public policy to industry, even if those sectors are getting it second hand from popular periodicals or other places. What it boils down to is the fact that you only understand the purpose of professors teachings duties, so you think that's all they should do when frankly that's a small fraction of what they do and not even the primary purpose of their jobs.

[cybercoma]

This country has a major problem with the money it pays to its public servants. Europe, even Western socialist Europe, doesn't pay its teachers, nurses, firefighters, cops, etc. such high salaries. The result is they can afford better public services than we can because they can have more people working in those positions.

People keep saying this but provide nothing to support his claim. I don't know what you do for a living, but what's the point of me sitting here saying you make too much money for what you do if I'm not going to somehow prove that? What's the point of saying your job function should be something that it's not, if I'm not going to back that claim up with some sort of facts or evidence that it should be that way? All you and others have done is whined about the public service making too much money without supporting your arguments with any sort of evidence of factual analysis.

Here's some facts for you.

The median income for a firefighter in Canada is $58,541. Is that too much money for someone risking their life to run into burning buildings weighed down with heavy equipment? Is that too much money for people who have to witness the aftermath of children being caught in a burning vehicle? You tell me. How little would YOU do that job for? $40,000? $30,000? $20,000?

Police in Canada have a median salary of $64,000. Is that enough money to go to work every day wondering if you'll make it home alive each night or morning? Is that enough money to deal with the absolute worst our society has to offer?

These are median salaries. That means 50% of firefighters and police officers make LESS than that.

I'm sorry, but I don't think someone who puts in a full-time work week risking their lives should be making less than $60-65k per year. That's an appropriate wage for a professional and there's an argument to be made that they don't make enough for the risks they take with their lives.