We're just going to have to disagree with how the average reader interprets an income number they see in the newspaper. As usual the numbers available are presented to give the best light to the argument of the person presenting them.
Gross income is a very crude measure of a person's spending power and only applicable in equivalent circumstances. Someone who receives $43,000 from a single source and only pays PAYE gets a very different number after tax than someone who has a student loan or someone who gets that much from two (or more) jobs and so is paying secondary tax on one of them.
You may be happy with that sort of simplistic presentation. I am not, especially when the whole issue revolves around how much someone -has to spend- (or not as the case may be). In that case I think it is important that like is compared with like and the like in this case is NET of tax. Anything else is being deliberately disingenuous (as Mr Burrows clearly was, twoswords put it neatly below) at worst and lazy (as the Herald probably was) at best.
Re: Jonathan
Gross income is a very crude measure of a person's spending power and only applicable in equivalent circumstances. Someone who receives $43,000 from a single source and only pays PAYE gets a very different number after tax than someone who has a student loan or someone who gets that much from two (or more) jobs and so is paying secondary tax on one of them.
You may be happy with that sort of simplistic presentation. I am not, especially when the whole issue revolves around how much someone -has to spend- (or not as the case may be). In that case I think it is important that like is compared with like and the like in this case is NET of tax. Anything else is being deliberately disingenuous (as Mr Burrows clearly was,