Australia
Australia has the comfort and the reassurance of knowing that its economy proves one of the largest and the strongest in the world. Displaying the virtues of a free-market, capitalistic system, our economy exploded into the 21st century, riding on a soaring stock market, rising incomes, and low inflation and unemployment. However, beneath this elaboration there lies a small but nagging economic worry in the minds of many people, a worry that has existed for some time now and jeopardises the health of this great economy. This worry is whether or not Australian society is branching off into two groups: those who have it all and those who don't. Economists refer to this as income inequality. Nearly all economists who study the distribution of income agree that it has grown more unequal in recent years than it has in the past. It is hard to believe that Australia, one of the highest GDP in general and per capita, suffers from an income inequality.According to the National Centre for Social Economic Modelling (NATSEM), and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) our inequality in income in poverty is constantly on the rise. NATSEM has published that that poverty has risen from around 10.8 per cent in 1981-82 to a staggering 16
7 per cent in 1997-98, almost double in 16 years. This is means that 80 per cent have access to only 2 per cent of the income. Many Australians assume that because Australia is one of the richest countries in the world, individual Australians are better off in relation to foreign conditions. Another problem was the decline in unionism. Since these specific types of workers remain relatively scarce, wage differences between them and less skilled workers have continued to increase. 5 per cent of the overall income belongs to the richest 20 per cent of the population. Little do they know that GDP is not an accurate measure of conditions because it does not take into account many crucial aspects. However, in the income distribution situation a variety of economic, social, and geographic factors are associated. The Government's "objective of fair or equitable distribution" of income and wealth attempts to pursue just this, to attempt to reduce the Gini coefficient to as low as number as possible. Recent tax cuts for the high income owners will clearly further increase this gap, and jeopardise the objective. While changes in the way the labour market operates have been shown to be the most important, other changes in the Australian society and the world are crucially important as well.
Common topics in this essay:
According ABS,
Little GDP,
,
Statistics ABS,
income inequality,
Australia GDP,
country 1,
cent income,
average weekly,
distribution income,
australia richest countries,
people living country,
average weekly salary,
richest countries world,
income distribution,
richest 20,
inflation unemployment,
overall income,
richest 20 cent,
countries world,
|