Riddler,

No, my last reply was not awesome. Nor was it meant to impress. It was just a restatement of the point I have made again and again without getting though to you.

However, even though your response resorts to the usual oh-so-superior directives (“go away”), it does not contain any actual lies, so I will do as I said and discuss teacher pay and average earnings. I will do so briefly as I expect your response to this will revert to untrue statements and I will be back to priority one, but you could always surprise me.

I have not responded earlier because I have not looked at this thread for a fortnight because I have had other more important things to do.

As I have said on several occasions, relative pay matters because it is one of the factors that determine the jobs that people take on.

A sub-division 14 teacher (the top unpromoted sub-division, automatically reached after seven years) was paid $11,400 ($75,136 in today’s dollars) in 1975. The top unpromoted teacher salary is now $81,806 (reached after ten years and performance reviews), giving a real increase of $6,670 (8.9 per cent). (Figures for other classifications were given on 24/2)

Male average weekly ordinary time earnings were $132.50 in December, 1974. The RBA quarterly calculator makes that $873.30 in today’s dollars.

Male average ordinary time earnings for November, 2010, were $1356.90, $483.60 (55.4 per cent) more in real terms than the December, 1974 equivalent.

Thus, a teacher’s real pay has gone up 8.9 per cent, while the overall average has gone up 55.4 percent.

An increase in the pay rate for one job will increase the overall average, as will a change in the proportion of more highly paid jobs used in calculating the average; e.g., if miners get more pay, the average will increase and if more people become miners at the higher pay, the average will increase.

Thus a person in one field seeing other fields provide increased pay will consider moving into one of the other fields. That is an automatic consequence of the increased pay and opportunities in the other field.

Over the long term, there must be an effect on the ability of those who enter and remain in teaching. If all that mattered was the real purchasing power, then there would be no problem in picking 1900 as the base year and paying teachers the same real pay as they got then. Of course, there would be no teachers left.

I can say more but I am disinclined to do so now as I expect your response will be standard one and I will have to revert to priority one, so, rather than waste my time, I will leave it for the moment.

"As I have said on several occasions, relative pay matters because it is one of the factors that determine the jobs that people take on"

You actually haven't said this (I asked you to quote where you had explained the importance of relative pay several times), but let's overlook that. I already provided a pretty concise summary of why this reasoning is false on the 23rd, when I pointed out that it is naive of you to believe people make the decision to enter a profession based on historical factors. People just do not go to the ABS before they choose their university degree, look up what teachers were paid in 1975, look up what other professions like miners were paid in 1975, and then conclude mining is being respected, while teaching has been treated unfairly (even though teaching pays the same or more in real terms). I doubt you'd find any teachers or miners who would even know the relevant figures on being asked. People decide careers based on several factors, of which real pay is a significant one

Now, the fact mining has a higher real pay today helps draw more people from the job market into mining, but I think it's pretty spurious that this supports your argument in any way. After all, you're claiming that top quality teaching candidates (for secondary schooling) are opting out of teaching and into professions like mining. This is silly because the people moving into mining are from the unskilled industries, people who only need to drive a car and can learn the rest when they get there. They're taking a higher salary, at the cost of moving to a remote community and being employed in a manual labour intensive industry, which has some dangers involved. I doubt most of the people opting into this career are being poached from the pool of potential teachers. But there is also a reason for mining to get an increase in salary, the facts on the ground have changed, the profession is more lucrative. The facts on the ground for teaching haven't changed, in fact the results by the employees in the field are now worse. That's an argument against a pay increase.

Mining became more profitable, but stuff like this happening in other industries doesn't merit an increase in teacher pay. Teacher pay is the same in real terms, and stacks up very well compared to most office jobs requiring similar qualifications.

You also quoted the average male wage, which was dishonest or lazy, because the job market was differently structured back then, especially for male/female workers.

After a respite of over 2 weeks I have to say I expected more. And please, it's a bit late to play the disinterested card, after 97 posts in this discussion.