Tony Abbott told the 55th Federal Council of the Liberal Party of Australia on 26 June 2011; As I said in my maiden speech and have been repeating ever since, middle income families with children are Australia’s new poor.
Leaving aside both the fact that Tony Abbott entered Parliament seventeen years ago and the suspicion that he is using this tired old argument to advocate tax cuts for comfortably off families like his own - it is immediately obvious that this statement by Abbott is not true.
So for the benefit of this shabby economic illiterate politician I will say it with pictures.
The mean weekly equivalised disposable household income has been rising for the entire time Tony Abbott has been the Member for Warringah and, the number reporting financial hardship had fallen to below twenty per cent of total households by 2009:
Individuals and families with low household incomes remain the poor - period.
Individuals and families on middle incomes fare better and, have been doing so consistently for at least the last twelve years.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2010; The headline indicator shows that the middle income group had a slightly greater gain in real income between 1997-98 and 2007-08 than the low income group (46% compared with 41%) and middle income households have maintained around a seven percentage point lead on low income households when it come to a percentage share of total income received by persons between 1994-95 and 2007-08.
Those most likely to experience financial difficulties are not middle income individuals and families:
By 2009-10 there were 2.9 million families with children living at home. In 2011 The Australian Institute of Family Studies stated; Of all four groups, families comprising couples with dependent children were in the second best financial position, with an average disposable income of $810 per week, and with 19% of people reporting the experience of at least one of the seven financial hardships. The Report for National Families Week 2011 included the observation that in 2010 couples with children were more likely to have one of the parents in paid employment than lone women with children:
2 comments:
Clarence Girl, you have missed the point. What Tony means is that really wealthy Australians are so far ahead that middle income earners now feel poor.
Standards are higher and aspirational families are feeling the pinch trying buy a car a for that almost adult teenager while they're still paying school fees for him. Keeping up to date with new technology with phones and ipads for everyone is a challenge too. Dick Smith could tell you a tale or two about the evidence of hardship that's seen every day in his stores.
All those cafes in shopping malls and on our sidewalks will tell similar stories of how average income earners can now only afford one or perhaps two lattes a day.
Get out there with your camera and record some real pictures of the hardship on our streets, not just for middle income earners but for almost all of us.
Ah, Patricia, I do so enjoy your comments :-D
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