Budget and Regression

[emma_in_dream]

Last week’s budget was so hideous as to be virtually unspeakable. I couldn’t get to the rally on the weekend because of my bourgeois need to get Pearl’s sixth birthday party organized. However, I did some brief number crunching.


According to the ABS, the mean disposable household income per week in the 2011-12 financial year was $346 for the bottom quintile (20%) and $581 for the second quintile (next 20%). People are a lot poorer than it seems. The average full-time wage is quite high, but so many people work part-time or are unemployed or retired or disabled that the mean incomes are much, much lower than you imagine.


I have listed the percentage of household weekly income which is represented by the proposed $7 fee to see a doctor. As you can see, it ranges from 2% for the poor down to 0.3% for the top earners. This would be the very definition of a regressive tax. Which, by the way, is bad.

Lowest - $346 - 2%
Second lowest -$581 - 1.2%
Average - $793 - 0.8%
Second highest - $1,057 - 0.6%
Highest - $1,814 - 0.3%

Comments

[lauredhel]

And it's way more regressive than those figures show - because the poorest are also the most likely to need multiple appointments in a year, and chronically ill folks in the low-to-middle brackets are going to be slugged hard with the increase in prescription costs also.

[emma_in_dream]

yes plus even if you find a bulk billing doctor and have a medicare card you are looking at nearly $7 again on medication.

[lauredhel]

Yep. And when your family's on six prescriptions every single month plus several necessary OTC meds... (and that's just us. Plenty of others are on more.)