fatvegan

The cover story of today's Australian is about the minimum wage and some of Ian Harper's thoughts on the subject. He's worried that linking maternity leave pay levels to the minimum wage will be a disaster because middle-income mums would have to survive on working class money. He doesn't want to have any more people with a vested interest in the level of the minimum wage. It's hard enough convincing the working class they aren't getting a bum deal, but if you have to start persuading everyone else you'll have no chance.

It doubles the constituency of people with a vested interest in the minimum wage from 150,000 to 300,000. Now half of them are low-paid people. The other half would be saying: 'How can I pay for all this baby gear on this miserable wage?'

Our concern is what this does is conflate, to confuse, two policy objectives which are very, very different. Some of those mothers will be low-paid but many aren't.

I still get surprised sometimes that folk can come out and say shit like this without any sense of self-consciousness. For Ian Harper, the thought that high-income mums might have to make do on minimum wage for what he calls a "brief period", truly is a horror.

Charles Murray wrote a book called A Plan to Replace the Welfare State and in it he suggests that we replace the welfare state. Instead the government would make a no-strings-attached payment of US$10,000 a year to every citizen (who wasn't in prison). Then the government would essentially withdraw from all areas of social welfare. So no public health care or public education. You'd have to enforce a minimum level of expenditure on health insurance.

I reckon it is not a bad idea and I have been wondering about similar things of late. Although I suspect we'd rapidly find that governments are actually pretty spectacularly good at keeping our nations running smoothly, despite all their little foibles.

At the moment I'm working two days a week - one day for uni and one for Hornsby. I get paid the same amount every week at uni, which I always get at the end of the fortnight. For my other job I invoice them however much I work, which gets paid some time in the next following months. That used to work OK. I'd invoice them 6 or 7 hours a day, and it didn't really matter when I got paid. Now I have two jobs, every dollar I earn at Hornsby only counts for about 30 cents after Centrelink and tax. Which is all fine because I don't think Centrelink should pay me they same regardless of how much I earn. But the problem is that when there are expensive weeks, like these last few with the higher rent, I have to choose between working and getting some money months down the track, or not working and getting paid this week. I've been gradually invoicing them less and less each week. It's not down to about 2 hours a week, even though I usually work 8. Even though it's kind of against my principles, to take extra money from the government rather than get paid hours I've actually work, that's what happens. When I have to fill out the invoice and aren't sure if I'll have enough for rent that week, it's so hard not to just put down less.

The other thing is that it has meant I've ended up working less. Even though I mostly like the job, and it pays well when the money eventually arrives.

I think there's a lesson in it for both employers and the government. I don't know if it would be the same for other people in my position, but I would imagine so. My job would get more hours if they paid sooner, and if the government didn't cut payments this week for income that won't actually arrive for several months. The government would obviously have to pay out a lot less if I invoiced them eight hours a day instead of one, and the economy would be better off for the additional incentive there is to actually show up at work. I guess they assume that most jobs will pay straight away, which is a fair assumption.

These things are only an issue when I'm worried there won't be enough money. I probably don't even think about it at other times.

Welfare to Work - Budget 2005-06

Other allowances will be changed to improve the rewards from work.

For instance, most allowances will be eliminated.

What does it mean to parents? New parents applying for welfare with a youngest child aged 6 and over will receive a payment and obligation that recognises their capacity to work part time.

Why bother going through the hassle of making people look for work to get a payment? Much easier to just assume they have a job.