The highest-paid top executives in India, the United Kingdom, the United States and South Africa received a 9 percent pay increase in 2022, while wages for regular employees fell by more than 3 percent over the same period. This is the conclusion of a survey by Oxfam ahead of International Labor Day. The organization that fights hunger in the world is therefore calling for a permanent tax increase for the richest 1 percent.
One billion workers in fifty countries earned an average of $685 less in 2022 due to high inflation. That is a collective loss of $746 billion (nearly €680 billion) in real wages, compared with if wages had kept pace with inflation. According to Oxfam, employees worked an average of six days ‘for free’ last year because their wages lagged inflation.
Women and girls also spent at least 380 billion hours each month on unpaid care work. Female employees also often had to work fewer paid hours or have to stop working altogether because of the high unpaid workload in the healthcare sector. They also continue to face gender discrimination, harassment and less pay for work of equal value to men, Oxfam said.
“Cost of living cannot be kept up”
“While executives tell us to keep wages low, they are giving themselves and their shareholders huge payouts. Most people are working longer for less and can’t keep up with the cost of living. Years of austerity and attacks on unions have widened the gap between the wealthiest and the rest of us,” said Amitabh Behar, interim executive director of Oxfam International.
Shareholder dividends, meanwhile, reached a record of nearly $1.6 trillion in 2022. That’s a real growth of 10 percent compared to 2021. U.S. companies paid out $574 billion to their shareholders, more than double the total real pay cuts for American workers.
Free unlimited access to Showbytes? Which can!
Log in or create an account and don’t miss a thing of the stars.