Show me the numbers / A comparison of circumstance

[marsden_online]

Update 21-02-2102 - story clarifying gross vs net appears in the Herald. Win :)
Minister spells out $43,000 'salary' claim for solo mum
~~~

"Gone all the way to the media" story of the week.
Mum: Prostitution to pay for studies
Mum's $43,000 benefit 'sufficient'
From the second (more recent) story

A domestic purposes beneficiary who is considering prostitution to pay for childcare and transport costs to attend a Unitec study course receives the equivalent of a $43,000 salary a year, Associate Social Development Minister Chester Borrows told Parliament yesterday.
...
"I think most New Zealanders would find that an equivalent salary of $43,000 is sufficient, or at least reasonable," Mr Borrows said.

The first story includes a breakdown of what I am assuming is Ms Wysoki's personal finances, but could easily be in part publicly available benefit entitlement information. It is given as weekly but simple multiplication gives ~$37,630 a year. Which using the tax calculator at IRD is about right for a -gross- salary of $43,000, but nowhere near as much money -to spend- as the article repeatedly implies.

I felt sufficiently strongly about this misrepresentation that I sent an email to the "author" of the article about it.

And how much money would be sufficient? I can only work from my own very different situation. Looking at my 2011 accounts and stripping out business and house-related related expenses
- but not mortgage payments as I noted they approximate what Ms Wysocki spends on rent
my Christchurch based, single-white-male, frugal but comfortable, healthy, dwelling-in-middle-class-privileged self still goes through $600-700 a week*. I think Ms Wysocki is doing bloody well as a single mother with two small children on a bit over $700 per week in the upper-north-island.

*1 I could halve this for a while if I had to just by stopping voluntary payments on the mortgage. Not a luxury available to Ms Wysocki with her rent. There are other things I could cut back on as well - moving from "frugal but comfortable" to just "frugal".
*2 Ok the utility bills are for two but they only come to about $60 a week - how much of a small child would you like to equate my flatmate to? :p

~~~
"You keep using those numbers. I do not think they are as big as you think they are." (apol. Inigo)

Comments

Re: Jonathan

[marsden-online.livejournal.com]

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.