Irish workers fared worse than this global average last year, taking a 3.9% pay cut, a loss of €2,107 in real wages compared to wages that kept up with inflation. This translates to working 8.3 days for free. The total loss for workers in Ireland was over €5 billion.
The Irish Times reported a 27% increase for 18 bosses of the largest Irish publicly quoted companies in 2021, giving an average pay packet of €3.46 million. They use figures from the Iseq 20 index in Dublin and FTSE 350 in London. This contrasts with CEO increases of 15% for the US and 4.4% in the UK.
“We recognise that figures from any one point in time can be exceptional in some regard but what we are highlighting is a very clear and alarming trend towards widening pay scales and resulting inequality across the globe,” said Jim Clarken, Oxfam Ireland CEO.
“This International Workers Day, most people across the world find themselves working longer for less and struggling to keep up with the cost of living.
“Perhaps most alarmingly, we've seen progress in reducing extreme poverty grind to a halt with extreme wealth and extreme poverty having increased simultaneously for the first time in 25 years. Poverty is once again on the increase.”
Globally, shareholder dividends hit a record $1.56 trillion in 2022, a 10 percent real-term growth compared to 2021. US corporations paid out $574 billon to their shareholders, more than double US workers’ total real wage pay cut. Brazilian shareholders received $34 billion, just shy of what the country’s workers lost in real wages.
Exorbitant shareholder payouts benefit the richest in society, exacerbating already high levels of inequality. Meanwhile, taxes on income from dividends and shares, which help to fund public services like healthcare and education, have continued to fall, down from 61 percent in 1980 to just 42 percent today.
“We urgently need greater taxation of the ultra-rich as a measure to fight inflation and inequality,” Clarken continued.
“We are calling for a national conversation in Ireland about taxing extreme wealth more effectively in order to redress the balance between sky-high executive pay and ordinary workers struggling to make ends meet.
“This week we heard that we pay double the European average for electricity in this country. Meaningful windfall taxes on excessive corporate profits should be introduced without delay to stop out of control inflation and profiteering.”