In an article published on GeoffEbbs.com today, I write at length about the background to the toxic tax cuts presented to the UK and Australian electorate by Liz Truss and Scott Morrison respectively. Some commentators have called this the death of trickle down economics, which would be a good outcome, but what concerns me more is the failure of reporters to actually identify the source of the problem.
The problem is that most of us do not get the average wage. We cannot even imagine what it is like to earn $2,000 a week, it seems like an impossible dream. If only we could do that, we would not struggle in everyday life in the way that we do. The idea that such a wage could be the average wage just makes no sense. We earn the median wage or less. The median wage is $41,860 per year. That means that half of working Australians earn less than $40,000 but politicians and the media thinks that most Australians are earning $95,000 a year. Think about it.
Half of working Australians earn less than half of the average wage. The mainstream media and the policy developers, though, work on the assumption that most Australians, average Australians, or “ordinary” Australians, earn the average wage.
This is not just a two speed economy, in which half of us are below the poverty line and the wealthy do not care. This is a two speed economy that is hidden, unrecognised, absent from the statistics.
- Read the full article on my blog
- Watch me tell it from The Cage
- Or hear the podcast on my Audio stream
The Cage is broadcast weekly on 4ZZZfm’s EcoRadio.