$150,000 devide by two = growth not waelth that should be disadvataged!!!

Whatever happened to the idea that people who should get welfare payments are those who are struggling, at the bottom of the pile, or at least in bottom half?

We’re just about bang on the median income. Earn over 75,000 in 6 months while having a kid? in my dreams.

These people should be made to make their complaints face to face with people on the disability support pension of $14,216.80 a year (or the Widows’ allowance which is even less.)

One other inconsistency (which may be addressed by the tax review) is that whilst we decide how much tax a person pays based on individual income, we decide how much welfare they get on household income. This leads to some very strange distortions in the system and I don’t think you can have a fair system which does that.

I am not saying that a household earning $150,000 is not above average.

Gittins specifically refers to someone earning $150,000 a year, when the policy cutoff is for $150,000 a year for a household . Clearly there is a difference between an individual and a household. I find his statement clearly misleading.

This statement of fact in his article is more to the point:

“Figures updated from the official Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia surveyshow that, for 2008-09, the median income of “households” will be about $80,000 a year before tax. And households earning $150,000 or more - starting at almost twice the median - are in the top 15 per cent of households.”

spog at 41, it seems to me that the question of EMTRs differs whether we are talking about the means-testing of benefits at high income levels (where it doesn’t much bother me) or whether we are talking about the creation of labour market disincentives at low and medium income levels (where it should be taken into account imho).

Note also - means not medians.

Have a look at Andrew Leigh’s stats:

http://andrewleigh.com/?p=1926

So Gittins is unlikely to be misrepresenting anything.

“The average earnings of adult full-time employees are now $60,000. So someone on $150,000 is pulling in 2½ times average. And you’re asking the rest of us to feel sorry for you?”

Does anyone spot what’s wrong with that statement? The policy cutoff for the baby bonus is $150,000 a year for the household . In many cases that involves two working people - who’d earn an average of $75,000 a year each. That’s only 1.25 times the average according to Mr Gittins. Talk about quite a misrepresentation of the facts!

I’m not saying that the baby bonus means testing policy is wrong but I think people should try and base their arguments on facts.

This segues into another topic, one too vast for me to write about on this thread- not “welfare” (aka Middle class welfare, the Tax Benefit part B’s and Baby Bonuses and other crappy policies designed to stymie working women) but the “social wage”. How much did we depend on the social wage before? Now, when it’s $50 up front to see your GP and the frighteners have been put on you about the terrible things in store should you send your children to the mere public school system, how much has the income necessary to feel “safe” increased?

As a household, we’re on about half of what the people discussed in this thread earn, and I can tell you, from the point of view of education, health etc - I don’t feel safe. Maybe they don’t either. Because John H and Peter C have been drumming it into them, year after year until 2007-eleven, that we are living in economic nirvana. They don’t want to believe that that’s not so. I think they’re safer than my household is, but the gaping maw of education, health and transport loom ever larger. Large enough to swallow really good incomes.

The other Big Topic is the shrinking “middle class” and the shifting of risk onto the middle and working classes. John Quiggin and Crooked Timber are writing and commenting about these things.

(bangs head on breakfast table yet again)

I’m not so sure why this Gittins piece is being talked about so much in the sense that I just thought it states the bleeding obvious. If you’re on more than $150k and not living comfortably then most would consider a trip to the mirror to be in order. What got me thinking was why these pillocks were popping up in the press just after Budget time. Was it an attempt by the MSM to say “hey check these “struggling” peeps out!” kind of thing or was it to sink the boot into the Rudd Government? Perhaps a bit of both.

I take it from this that you don’t believe in horizontal equity in the tax system? Not that FTB B is a good example!

I also wonder, in the context of welfare, what you think an appropriate rate of withdrawal is? Labor has been critical in the past of EMTRs higher than the top marginal rate being imposed on welfare recipients. That doesn’t seem to have stopped them imposing an average effective tax rate of over 50% on each and every dollar of that $150,001.

Personally, I think high EMTRs on welfare withdrawal can be argued for (and higher than 50%) but I’m wondering what the LP crowd thinks?

But the lending officers in banks weren’t telling folk to be cautious and prudent. A friend who wanted a very modest loan recently found the bank chappie saying “borrow an extra few hundred thousand $ !!” The friend was astounded, and had to restrain the bank chappie’s slavering lust to lend.

Bank just sent me a letter offering me a pre-approved $44,000 credit card . FFS!!! At nearly 20% interest!!! That’s $8800 a year in interest payments alone if it were maxed out. What sort of fool would sign up to that? The offered amount is like over 4 times the limit of current card, which has no debt on it, which is I guess why they want me to sign up to that poverty trap. Maybe they are nervous about paying me interest on my cash savings and are trying to trick what they must suppose is a totally gullible mind into sending them all it’s money.

Still, Kim, I live in Auchenflower and we’re DINKs (actually right now officially we are single income as I quit my job), well-off, always thought of myself in recent years as well off, but I can’t afford to buy round here. Actually, maybe I could, but I think a property crash is around the corner and I guess I’ll be buying low then, instead of paying top-of-the-market now.

BTW it’s my (anecdotal) opinion having currently quit my job and looking for another one that the IT jobs market has considerably slowed, even compared to say January last year. Slowdown sooner than later.

As prominent members of the pseudo-left, shouldn’t LP be standing up for these pseudo-battlers? How else will they get their bourgois-air-fare-discount revolution!

*exits whistling Change in Mood*

The argument is not about whether these people are the equivalent of Kerry Packer or Scrooge McDuck rolling in his piles of wealth, but only whether they should consider themselves entitled to welfare.

Hrm - exactly how do you define welfare? If you change the tax system so someone on $150,000 pays less tax if they have a child compared to someone who doesn’t have a dependent child - is that welfare?

Medical care is not means tested - is that welfare? Millionaires can certainly afford to pay for their own medical care. What about government funded maternity leave for women earning $200,000/yr - is that welfare?

Is welfare only cash payments?