$100,000 is now much too low of an annual salary threshold for Ontario, Canada’s annual, public sector “Sunshine List.” In 2024, a total of 377,666 public sector employees made at least that much, up from 300,680 in 2023.

I’m pretty sure I’ve never even made it to half of that sunshine amount ($50,000) and certainly not in actual Ontario public sector jobs: part-time adjunct instructor, part-time LCBO employee, and part-time at Canada Post. I’m not sure if L1fel@b$ counts, as it mostly provides publicly-funded services and some of us as medical couriers are members of a relevant union, even though the company is private and now owned by a similar US firm. In any case, my full-time salary works out to $40,365. (For my US friends and colleagues, that is currently the equivalent of $28,193 US.)

The number of people making at least $100,000 in the private sector in Ontario is obviously much higher than 377,666, as nearly one quarter of Canadians or Canadian households make that much. $100,000 is not an important number. A more important number is the substantial proportion of people making only up to $55,000 (lower class or, arguably, including lower middle class starting at $28,000). According to financial firms, middle class is now considered $53,359 to $235,675, so $100,000 is kind of low-ish middle class at this point, not “sunshine,” particularly. A 2023 report gives different, lower, quintile-based thresholds for lower, lower middle, middle, upper middle, and upper class (presumably individual–not household–incomes), but $100,000 is still not anything special.