BCA member CEOs choked over their boardroom lunch while reading that low paid workers with kids may lose the incentive to work. It seems that welfare benefits will increase faster than low paid workers' wages once the effects of the new IR laws kick in.
THE new workplace laws will soon make work pointless for many low-skilled people with children - because they will be paid more on welfare - a market economist warns.The new system is likely to slow the growth of minimum wages while holding sole parent pension rises at almost 5per cent a year - meaning after-tax wages could soon fall behind welfare benefits forgone for those who choose to work.
"It would not be long before the benefits from not working, which are indexed to either prices or average earnings, will exceed the benefits from working," says Professor Mark Wooden, deputy director of the Melbourne Institute, in the Journal of Political Economy.
The employer collective will see this as threat to ever increasing remuneration [see previous post]. They and their conservative government lackeys will soon move to ensure that there's no handouts if you can get a job, regardless of how low paid it is.
And so leads us into the second phase of the Americanisation of the Australian social landscape. The reform of welfare.
The middle class can expect to maintain their handouts due to voter numbers. The least well off minority are going to find welfare much harder to obtain as the authorities ensure they take those low paid positions.
The weakest in society will increasingly suffer to maintain the strong earnings growth of the most wealthy.
Makes you proud to be Australian, doesn't it?
I would be interested to hear your view point on the governments new "branwave" to pay the women of australia (regardless of age) to have a baby.
It is my opinion that this is a way of prostition our teenage girls who see the birth payment as a quick easy buck but rarely see the money or spend it on things totally urelated to the child.
WHAT WAS THE GOVERNMENT THINKING???? The payments started at $3000 and are to rise to $5000.
Yes I am a woman and a mother of a young child of 9years old but truely is what the young girls of today need??
Plus with your comments already on welfare reform isnt this just another way to keep the poor poor and the rich rich while running the country into the ground?
Thanks
Anne