Is Australia’s economic prosperity fairly shared? 2 graphs to make up your mind: Corporate profits vs Real wages
In Australia, the Qantas shutdown of Sat 29/10/11 has put scrutiny back on Industrial Disputes. In the last week the argument has moved from Qantas’ specific case to broad generalisations about the supposedly ‘unhealthy’ state of Australia’s workplace relations. We are even hearing that tensions between unions and stevedoring (docker) companies seem to be mounting again on the waterfront.
Vocal business leaders are arguing that Unions have gained too much power under Labor’s ‘Fair Work’ legislation, which replaced Howard’s Liberal government ‘WorkChoices’. A point often raised in the media is the perceived unreasonable demands from the Unions who do not seem to understand the need that businesses have to remain highly profitable to survive, and that maintaining profitability is a day-to-day struggle despite the perception that corporations are cashed-up.
So stepping back from the specific cases of Qantas or the waterfront, one of the questions really posed by those disputes, as well as by the ‘occupy’ movements, seems to be:
Are the gains from Australia’s economic prosperity fairly shared?
Here are 2 graphs to help you make up your mind: Corporate profits vs Real wages.
Be your own judge.
Corporate profits. From 100 to 1,400 = x14
Real wages growth: from 100 to 120 = x1.2
Sources:
Corporate profits: AMP Capital – Chief Economist Newsletter, March 2011
Real wages growth: Economist Bill Mitchell’s blog
{ lelaissezfaire, Sydney, 2 November 2011 }
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Only the truly biased or some one living under a rock for 20 years doesn’t know this disparity between productivity and wages. This has been reported on consistently over this time, it’s just the corporate press that has derided it as a myth.
It’s just like tobacco does no harm and every third professional will sing it’s praise. Graphs like these are a reason why the enlightened have come to realise that journalist is just another word for prostituting propagandist.
It appears the first graph displaying corporate profits has not been adjusted for inflation
Further explanation of the graphs would be beneficial,
Thank you for providing really informative posts on your resource. How can I find your RSS feed?