Affluent Unreality?
Are the managements of infrastructure companies completely out of touch with what the average person earns? The thought struck me the other day when the manager of Sydney's Cross City Tunnel refused point blank to lower the toll.
During a testy exchange with reporters, Mr Mulligan ruled out dropping the toll and refused to acknowledge that mistakes had been made or that the company could have done things differently."Is there so much anger from the public? There's a lot of noise," he said.
Perhaps this attitude is a manifestation of the economic divide. These management types would be on six figure salaries, only socialise with others in the same income bracket, live in the Eastern Suburbs or the North Shore and rarely travel to where the vast majority of motorists live. To them, $35 per week to avoid the traffic seems reasonable.
For those on the average yearly wage of around $50k, the toll is a impost they can not afford to pay. Hence the gridlock and the anger.
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Interesting average wage figure. Andrew Leigh had a post up the other day that suggested it was close to half that.
Tim, it's actually average full time earnings. Average earnings over the whole population are lower.
I thought to be true to the argument I should use the figure that relates to those with a full time job, as it's those people who'd use the tunnel 10 times per week if it weren't so expensive.
As those income figures are inflated by the few who earn huge salaries, you'd have to say that the average wage / salary of the people they're trying to intice into the tunnel would be lower.