Extra Few Dollars Barely Pays For The Basics
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday May 10, 2002
Machine operator Adele Williams would not mind home-contents insurance and more regular trips to the club for a meal, but she does not think an extra $10 a week is going to quite cover it.
That is about what Mrs Williams expects she will get, after tax, from an $18-a-week rise for low-paid workers, the outcome of the ACTU's 2002 Living Wage Claim.
With a net weekly wage of $386.50 (with $5 taken out for union fees), she will actually be getting closer to $12 extra in the purse, which still does not bring the next holiday any closer, or even keep up with the cost of living, she says.
According to the Bureau of Statistics, when it comes to the cost of many basic items, she is right.
Figures released by the bureau on Wednesday show the price of most food and personal hygiene products has risen in the past year, as has alcohol and household supplies.
Should Mrs Williams buy a beer at the club, it will cost her 4 more than it did in March last year.
Milk is up 10, bread 7, silverside roast $2.20, potatoes 5, eggs 23 and coffee 12.
At least sugar is down 3, carrots 13, frozen peas 2 and pink salmon a whopping 35.
The car-owning Mrs Williams can also take some comfort in the knowledge that the price of petrol has gone down 9.1 in the past year.
She is, in a sense, fortunate that she and her husband do not have a mortgage, as interest rate rises would almost cancel out the rise, but in a city where rents seem to just keep going up, she says, they already pay $250 a week for their three-bedroom Greenacre home.
What little the couple save from their combined weekly income of $825, they put toward their retirement. In the meantime, Mrs Williams says, $18 a week only heightens resentment among the working poor.
``You work your butt off all day for nothing; even with that last $10 rise, you only saw $5 at the end of the day," she said.
``To me a really good rise would be $50. We could get the contents of the house insured at $400 a year it's too much for us.
``If we want to go away we have to save up for 12 months.
``We like to go down to the club for tea once a week rather than cook, and sometimes we can't even do that."
© 2002 Sydney Morning Herald