Random Analytics: Tony, Please Stop Pretending You Share My Budget Pain

by Shane Granger

Peter Whiteford did an excellent article for The Guardian earlier this week which highlighted the fact that the poor will suffer the most through to 2017. Given that the Treasurer (Joe Hockey) and the Prime Minister seemed convinced that the budget pain is being shared across the board I thought I might utilise some of the research data that Professor Peter Whiteford and PhD candidate Daniel Nethery have come up with for an infographic.

1 - BudgetPain_Infographic_140520

Technical notes:

  • I have chosen to highlight the differences in categories using more direct examples (i.e. a university student going on to Newstart rather than just a ‘Single Person on Newstart, aged 23-years’);
  • The research uses Average Weekly Earnings (AWE) rather than an annual income (which most non-economists recognize more readily). I have averaged the AWE using the most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics data;
  • Any mistakes are unintentional and are of my own making, thus not reflecting the excellent work of Peter and Daniel.

The Guardian piece can be found in full (including the table) here. Working-age poor will suffer most pain from Australian budget.

 

Image: Tony and Margie Abbott photo care of the ABC.