"""
Of what use are these figures.
"""

They make the pollies feel better about giving themselves a pay rise while most are struggling to pay their power bills!

Antiseptic, your $52000 figure is not the median wage nor the median weekly wage.

It is not exact either but it is near enough. It is the average yearly household wage.

It is also a figure I dispute given the median individual wage is as best as I can tell below the current minimum wage.

Senexx, I think you're mistaken.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income_in_Australia_and_New_Zealand

That claims that the figure for households was $66,820 in 2007/2008. It quotes the ABS figures.

As household income includes benefits and allowances, and all contributing taxpayers, it seems reasonable to assume that the median individual income is significantly lower.

I was given the $52000 figure by someone who should know. If it's wrong, I'm sure they'd be pleased to find out.

Senexx, just a little more.\

From http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/32F9145C3C78ABD3CA257617001939E1/$File/65230_2007-08.pdf

Table 5

It gives median income for all persons in 2007-2008 as $692/week, or $35984 PA. Wage and salary earners had a median of $807/wk, or $41964 PA, so you're partially correct. I'll have to check with my friend to find out where he got his data. Perhaos he wasn't including those who derive an income solely from benefits.

Either way, it's a great deal lower than the headline mean figure beloved of Govt., which in this case are $925/week and $811/week respectively. I really have no good explanation for the huge discrepancy between those figures and the latest claim for the headline figure.

Antiseptic, yes I knew the ABS had the figures in the mid 60ks. I didn't deduct benefits or such to arrive at your figure.

Ah yes I have seen the ABS stat before and that's the mean middle income of a household.

I swear I've read somewhere the median individual income is $26000 but I cannot find the source, the closest I can find is Andrew Leigh's blog which seems to have 19 thousand and something near $20K c. 2006 and $29K c.2008

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/2902.0Main%20Features30Jun%202007?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=2902.0&issue=Jun%202007&num=&view=

has the weekly figure, $466 that's $24000 annually c. 2007

Now with Factoring in inflation $26k sounds about right (assuming 2-3% target was adhered to)

Which of course means I have to go back and actually agree with you that $52000 is about the median household wage assuming two workers per household.

However I still note that $26k is lower than the current federal minimum wage. The current FMW is $569.9 x 52 = 29634.80. Unless of course I'm assuming too many work weeks.

So the median individual is on less than minimum wage.

And my apologies for misremembering.

I do indeed think the our alternatives are a better substitute than what the ABS provides. I think the median individual wage is even better since there is no precise definition of a household and it is all households averaged.