I was making a submission to the former Australian Fair Pay Commission (AFPC) about single-breadwinner working families living below the poverty line. A member of AFPC observed that living in poverty was 'their choice'; if the second parent got a job, the family would not be living in poverty.
This 'blame the victim' attitude reflects fundamental issues in wage-setting in Australia. How many wage packets are needed to avoid poverty or achieve a decent standard of living? Shouldn't parents in low paid families be able to choose for one of them to stay home to care for their children?
The reality is that families on a single wage, at or near the national minimum wage, live in poverty. There is economic pressure for the second parent work just in order to make ends meet.
AFPC data suggests that the average family of four is usually above the poverty line. However this is because AFPC includes the second parent's Newstart unemployment payment in its calculations: stay-at-home parents are not entitled to this payment unless they are actively seeking employment.
If you hold the view that the second parent should 'get a job' or be prepared to do so, the inclusion of this payment might be justified when calculating the overall disposable income of the family. And if it is included, the level of minimum wages can be reduced accordingly.
The Australian Catholic Council for Employment Relations (ACCER) objected to these misleading calculations; from 2008, AFPC shows a separate calculation for families of four where Newstart would not be payable. These figures show that the single breadwinner family is well below the poverty line.
Despite ACCER's repeated urgings for the minimum wage floor to be raised, no action has been taken, presumably on the basis that if things got too tough the second parent could get a job, or start searching for one, and therefore qualify for Newstart.
In AFPC's last decision of July 2009 (when it froze wages), it found families of four without Newstart were living 10 per cent below the poverty line, and those with Newstart were 2 per cent above it. Earlier this year a Fair Work Australia (FWA) report put these families 15 per cent below the poverty line.
This is why ACCER argued for the replacement of Work Choices by new legislation that required the wage tribunal to have regard to the needs of the low paid. The Fair Work Act 2009