Poverty 'worse than 30 years ago'
Aug 4th 2003, 4:21 am
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Poverty 'worse than 30 years ago'
Keep coming you refugees /immo's are helping to peg wages down , market forces demand a labour pool to regulate wages.
Poverty in Australia was now worse than 30 years ago, a Senate inquiry was told today. And having a job was no longer a safeguard, because more and more jobs paid less than $300 a week.
The Senate Community Affairs Committee into Poverty and Financial Hardship was told that being employed no longer protected workers and their families from poverty.
"Today, 45 per cent of people who are poor live in households where there is a wage earner," Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union secretary Ron Monaghan told the inquiry in Brisbane.
He said low hourly rates and squeezing more work into fewer hours had created a crisis of low pay.
"It is not surprising that a wage no longer protects workers from living in poverty, when half the new jobs created over the 1990s paid less than $300 a week," Mr Monaghan said.
"In Australia, our politicians have failed us, in that they have not bitten the bullet and made commitments about how we are going to, in this very wealthy country of ours, eliminate poverty, and I think it's time (they did)."
Poverty in Australia was now worse than 30 years ago, a Senate inquiry was told today. And having a job was no longer a safeguard, because more and more jobs paid less than $300 a week.
The Senate Community Affairs Committee into Poverty and Financial Hardship was told that being employed no longer protected workers and their families from poverty.
"Today, 45 per cent of people who are poor live in households where there is a wage earner," Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union secretary Ron Monaghan told the inquiry in Brisbane.
He said low hourly rates and squeezing more work into fewer hours had created a crisis of low pay.
"It is not surprising that a wage no longer protects workers from living in poverty, when half the new jobs created over the 1990s paid less than $300 a week," Mr Monaghan said.
"In Australia, our politicians have failed us, in that they have not bitten the bullet and made commitments about how we are going to, in this very wealthy country of ours, eliminate poverty, and I think it's time (they did)."
