Ontario's $100,000 line hasn't moved since 1996

The Public Sector Salary Disclosure threshold — the salary above which a public employee's name, employer, and pay become public record — has stayed exactly where it started. Scroll to see what that's meant, one number at a time.

$0$50,000$100,000$150,000people on the list0100,000200,000300,000400,000199619982000200220042006200820102012201420162018202020222024$0 threshold (unchanged since 1996)$0 if it had kept up with inflation
1996

Ontario sets the public-sector salary disclosure threshold at $0. 0 people cross it.

2008

Twelve years in, inflation has already pushed the threshold's real value to $0. The published number: still $100,000. The list has grown to 0 people.

2018

An inflation-adjusted threshold would have crossed $0. It was still $100,000 — the same number from 1996.

2025

Today the gap is $0. 0 people are named on the list — 90× the 1996 list — many simply because their pay kept up with inflation while the line that makes them public didn't move at all.

Nobody clears the line by accident

Every sector's 2025 salary distribution starts at exactly $100,000 — nothing below it exists, by definition. What happens right at that line varies: some sectors pile up hard against the threshold; others, like school boards, cluster around the next step up their salary grid.

The view from the very top

Every dot is one of the 2,000 highest-paid people disclosed that year, positioned by salary and nudged apart just enough to stay separate. Most of the list is packed in close to $100,000 — a handful of executives are off in their own weather system.

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School BoardsMunicipalities and ServicesHospitals and Boards of Public HealthGovernment of Ontario - MinistriesGovernment of Ontario - JudiciaryGovernment of Ontario - Legislative Assembly and OfficesOntario Public ServiceUniversitiesCollegesCrown AgenciesOther Public Sector EmployersOntario Power GenerationHydro One and Ontario Power GenerationSeconded

Who's actually on the list

In 1996, universities were the single largest sector on the list — more than a quarter of it. By 2025 their share had fallen to under 8%, not because university pay shrank, but because school boards and municipalities grew so much faster: from a combined 15% of the list in 1996 to over half of it today.

School BoardsMunicipalities and ServicesHospitals and Boards of Public HealthGovernment of Ontario - MinistriesGovernment of Ontario - JudiciaryGovernment of Ontario - Legislative Assembly and OfficesOntario Public ServiceUniversitiesCollegesCrown AgenciesOther Public Sector EmployersOntario Power GenerationHydro One and Ontario Power GenerationSeconded

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