People on $ 150,000 Struggling … What! By James Reed
Well, well, well … according to Bill Shorten, who has shortened it, people earning up to $ 150,000 a year are struggling. I suppose if they have a family, a mortgage, and kiddies needing private piano lessons. But, some of us have to get by with less than the poverty level, which for Australia is $489 a week for a single adult and $1,027 a week for a couple with 2 children. If those on $ 150,000, poor vegemites, are struggling, then what about those of us, sailing around the iceberg of the poverty line? With crushing inflation, and economic collapse, many will need to live like the guy in 123 homefree.com, complete with the cute dairy sheep:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvcpPAE7FWc
“Bill Shorten says people earning up to $150,000 a year are struggling to get by as inflation outstrips wage growth, in comments that undermine a push within Labor to dump stage-three tax cuts.
The NDIS Minister, who railed against the former Coalition government’s income tax cuts when Labor leader, on Thursday said people were not doing it easy even if they were earning well over $100,000. While he mentioned the difficulties for middle wage earners in defence of the government’s industrial relations reforms, his comments have wider ramifications as Jim Chalmers decides over the next two budgets whether Labor will amend tax cuts that give the most benefit to workers earning more than $120,000.
“What’s motivated this legislation has been to redress the imbalance in the Australian economy, where basically the share of national income going to people as pay-as-you-go tax earners has fallen,” Mr Shorten told the ABC.
“And I must say, there is an economic benefit to the whole economy. When people have a little bit more money to spend and when you’re on less than, you know, $100,000 or $120,000, $150,000 a year, you spend nearly everything you get.
“So what this does is this provides economic activity.”
Mr Shorten opposed the stage-three tax cut package when he was Labor leader as he ran a “class war” campaign against high income earners and big business. Labor’s focus under his leadership was providing bigger tax cuts than the Coalition for people earning $125,000 or less.
Ahead of the election, Anthony Albanese vowed to retain the tax cuts despite it being unpopular within caucus, but the Treasurer has since left a door open to amending the $244bn package as he seeks to repair the nation’s fiscal deficit amid “a deteriorating global situation, high and rising inflation and persistent structural pressures”.
With Labor MPs split on the future of tax cuts due to take effect in 2024, Mr Shorten’s comments echo statements by Labor MPs Mike Freelander and Meryl Swanson, who urged the government to honour its commitment to deliver the cuts in full.
During the stage-three debate, Dr Freelander called on the government to stick to its promise, arguing that people who earned above $120,000 “are not rich”.
“People earning over $120,000 it does sound like a lot, but … these are people working hard to try and put a roof over their heads,” he said.
The Australian has previously reported about 2.5 million middle-income Australians will pay thousands of dollars in extra tax if the stage-three cuts are abolished, with the hit to pay packets coming at a time when economists say the economy will be going through a deep slowdown.
An analysis by The Australian shows a wage earner on $120,000 would be $1875 worse off in 2024-25 if the final tranche of tax relief was scrapped, while a worker on $160,000 would be $4675 worse off. A household of two on $120,000 and $80,000 would be collectively $2750 poorer.”
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