About this app

This app compares changes in faculty salary scales at selected Ontario universities with changes in inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The app uses annual percentage changes to calculate how salary scales and prices would have changed over time.

Data

To use the app, upload a CSV file containing annual data. The first column should contain the year, the second column should contain CPI increases, and the remaining columns should contain annual percentage increases in salary scales for the universities of interest.

Starting Year Analysis

The Starting Year Analysis tab allows you to choose a starting year using the slider. For each selected university and for CPI, the value in the starting year is set to 100. Subsequent annual percentage increases are then compounded forward.

For example, suppose the year 2010 is selected. If a university's salary scale increases by 2% in 2011, its index would increase from 100 in 2010 to 102 in 2011. A further 2% increase would produce an index of 104.04, rather than 104, because the increases are compounded.

Vertical grey dotted lines indicate settlement years. Be alert to these when choosing compounding windows: choosing a year within a settlement period can lead to deceptive results.

Cumulative Analysis

The Cumulative Analysis tab looks at the same information from the opposite direction. The main purpose of this analysis is to show, in a single graph, how compounded scales over time can change depending on what year you start compounding.

The user selects a 'compound to' year; by default this should be the current year. The app then calculates, for each x-axis year, the value of $100 compounded from that year up to the selected 'compound to' year.

For example, if 'compound to' is selected as 2025, then the y-axis value corresponding to an x-axis value of 2010 will be the number 100 with compounded inflation/scale applied for the years 2011-2025, inclusive.

Interpreting the results

An index of 100 represents the reference value. An index above 100 indicates an increase relative to that reference value. Comparing a university's salary-scale index with the CPI index provides an indication of how salary-scale changes have compared with inflation over the period examined.

Important: The app examines changes in salary scales, not changes in the actual salaries received by individual faculty members. It does not account for promotion, merit increases, progression through a salary grid, or other changes in individual compensation.

Prior-year CPI

The app generates results for prior-year CPI. This uses prior-year CPI instead of current-year CPI in all calculations. This is because the UW MoA states that prior-year CPI is the starting point for FALSE

Selecting series

Use the checkboxes in the sidebar to select which universities and CPI series appear in the graphs and tables. All available series are selected by default.

Downloads

Both analysis tabs provide options to download the displayed graph as a PNG file and the underlying numerical results as a CSV file.