poverty and inequality have been on the rise in Australia
Over the past decades, poverty and inequality have been on the rise in Australia. In all societies in the global, some disparity occurs because of the differences in ability, effort, opportunity and sometimes policies and institutions that exist. Excessive inequality is not good for global society since it adversely impacts social cohesion and hinders growth. Moreover, there are two main ways in which Australia measures its inequality, and they are the measurement of income and the measurement of wealth. Generally, Australia’s and the world would like to think that they are a fair land that doesn’t have extreme poverty or affluence. However, the perception is quite different from the reality and until currently, Australia is still unequal and has a significant number of persons who are poor.
When compared to other countries across the globe, the inequality in Australia is nearly the same as that of English speaking nations including the United States and United Kingdom. However, inequality is more in Australia than in some countries like china. Inequality matters because excessive inequality in any society is harmful and when persons with low incomes and wealth are left behind, they struggle to reach socially acceptable living standards in society and to participate fully in the society. Ultimately, the struggle leads to divisions in society. Further, a lot of inequality is bad for the economy since when resources and power are only few hands of people in society and the impoverished persons have to effectively participate in the workforce to earn a living, economic growth becomes dimished.in Australia, wealth inequality is more evident than income inequality because the wealthiest won close to two thirds of all the wealth.
Over the last three decades, labour productivity has enhanced dramatically and evry Australian has contributed to this achievement. However, it is only the powerful elite in the bank sector, big business, insurance firms and multinationals that have significantly benefitted from the wealth created. Profits of companies and the bonuses and salaries of executives have increased yet the wages of lower income persons have remained the same. Yet, these low income workers are expected to deal with increasing energy bill, medical expenses, childcare costs and the other necessities in life. The poor struggle to make the ends meets and the increasing cost of living is a nightmare for them. In most cases, the cost of living is greater than household incomes leading to these poor workers complain to civil society organizations and their legislative representatives to help them address the issue of low wages. The rising inequality has had significant impact on the financial decisions of households and some of them are deep in debt because of inequality. For instance, in Australia there are rising mortgages and consumer loans that have not been adequately secured meaning that there is a high chance of them being defaulted and the risk of financial market instability being enhanced. However, among the wealthy, there was a time that saving were recycled through the financial system to offer capital for entrepreneurs who wanted to create factories, develop innovative technologies, create jobs and open new ventures. Therefore, unlike previously whereby inequality used to be associated with economic instability, currently, it is associated with inefficient financial transactions and create economic cycles that are meant to profit the rich in society.
There are numerous concepts and statistical indicators that can be used to evaluate inequality of income and wealth. A majority of the policy debates in Australia and across the globe focus on salaries or wages people get from their employment, gross income of households, government cash transfers and how net income impacts the consumption of services like education and health. The Australian government has attempted to address the debate of inequality by shifting attention to the positive changes that incur when it comes to incomes of persons. for instance, the government shares the data of the income of the elites and argues that since it has not increased, inequality has not increased. However, the claim doesn’t reflect the state of inequality I society and that is why the inequality is adversely impacting the economy.
In summary, because there has been a quick increase in the value of investment properties, homes, shares and other assets held by the rich, wealth inequality is significantly greater than income inequality. It has become common for the wealthy elite in Australia to have multi-million dollars homes, and huge investments yet the poor are daily losing their homes and can’t even access basic needs such as health. The extremely wealthy are not concerned about the poor and would rather accumulate antiques, paintings, metals and assets that appreciate over time instead of helping the poor. As the assets of the wealthy increase in value, the wealthy inequality continues to augment. On the other hand some Australians are struggling and have to rely on social benefits to survive.
Australia is a capitalist nation and like other capitalist nations, its economic prosperity is not evenly distributed. Some of the citizens in the nation experience wealth as an enabler that enhances opportunities while others see wealth as a significant disadvantage because of the social and economic inequality that exists in the country. According to research, the capitalist system has created wealthier globally than any other system at any other point in history. However, despite several political, social and economic improvements, the total number of the world’s poor is still the same if not more than it was two centuries ago. The gap between the rich and poor continues to widen and its primarily growing because of income inequality. In Australia, inequality in both income and wealth is becoming a social issue and it needs the urgent attention of the government, social work and welfare sector. Research claims that the top 1% of Australians owns the same wealth as 60% of the bottom Australians. Furthermore, the richest 7 persons in Australia now own more than the poorest 1.73 million households. Across the world, the global wealth inequality continues to increase and the richest 1% of the global population now have more wealth than half of the rest of the world and 80% of the bottom in the world only have 6% of the globes total wealth. The wealth disparities have enhanced over the past decade with the richest receiving more income growth than the poor. What accelerated the disparities is the global financial crisis. Likewise, while the global wealth disparity data demonstrates that wealth inequality is not as pronounced as in some liberal-capitalist societies. The rate at which Australia is advancing towards greater inequality is alarming since it faster than most comparable OECD nations. The growing socio-economic inequality will not only impact the poor Australians but its profound and widespread impact will be felt by all the Australians. Some of the consequences associated with increasing inequality are intergenerational poverty, high crime rates, higher rates of suicide, surging morbidity and mortality rates, increase rates of violence and mental health issues.
The Australian government is one of the nations that have adopted sustainable development which is a framework for national and global development. The first objective of the framework is to end poverty in all forms and the national target of Australia is that it will decrease at least by half the poverty rates among men, women and children of all ages living in poverty by 2030. By 2015, Australia did not have a poverty reduction plan and had not agreed upon the national definition of poverty, its reporting by the government on how it tells the public its progress to address it and the regular monitoring of the poverty rates. Despite Australia enjoying a constant economic growth over the last decades and being ranked among the wealthiest countries globally, poverty rates are still very high. The question of what constitutes poverty has always been central to social and political debates it is because poverty is embedded in social and economic conditions and approaches and there countries, organizations or people can interpret it differently. Currently, the definition of poverty is impacted by globalization and free market policies. Industrial revolution in Australia brought about massive poverty and necessitated the society to change its way of thinking about poverty.in the 18th and 19th centuries, the radical social and economic changes prompted political economists like Marx and Adam smith to view poverty as either the necessary price people have to pay for social progress or the evidence of an inefficient system. Therefore, these two basic approaches have since been used to understanding poverty.
The dominant poverty debates currently are still intrinsically linked to the idea that economic progress and growth will ultimately alleviate poverty. The focus on economic development means that the best way to define poverty is in monetary trams using numerical data to measure expenditure, consumption and income poverty lines. However, these purely quantitative concepts of poverty are inadequate in dealing with the multifaceted nature of poverty both practically and conceptually since they ignore the qualitative nature of being poor. Furthermore, the expected outcome of social change also impact thinking about poverty and economics. For instance, the industrial revolution caused deep anxieties about social dislocation hence developing great social unrest and augmenting crime and these two are major challenges for capitalist industrialization. The 19th century made people realize that poverty is a social issue and some of the rich felt that the poor were a threat to them. The rich feared violence and crime from poor persons and that is why the welfare state was created in many European nations including Australia. The market development approach of the 21st century is still similar to that of the 18th and 189th centuries since there is the minimal conceptualization of human needs still impacts social policy. In Australia, researchers from various organizations such as the Centre for Independent Studies have continuously asked for welfare reductions, corporate tax cuts and repair of the budget so that poverty and social inequality can be addressed. The CIS has been successful since it made the Australian Poverty Enquiry to shift its poverty debate from the incidence and extent of poverty to a renewed emphasis on looking at poverty as a societal problem that has not been adequately addressed. However, politics are a threat to any organizations that want to conclusively address poverty. For instance, when the Senate Inquiry Committee established that Australia had unacceptable poverty rates, some of the politicians termed the report as biased, inaccurate and deeply ideological. The government is not ready to accept that the existing poverty rates are high and that is why government sources deny any report that shows the poverty rates to be high. The discrediting of the poverty statics and the credibility of those who develop these statistics is meant to deny the existence of poverty and excuse government of the responsibility of addressing the poverty issues.
Currently, poverty and income and wealth inequalities are increasing in Australia and yet politicians are focused on undermining and decreasing the welfare state. They do so under the disguise of budget repair and ultimately the welfare recipients are punished so that politicians can privatize state assets and functions. While the welfare reductions for the most vulnerable continue, wealth and corporate taxes have been neglected meaning that more wealth and income is being redistributed upwards. Therefore, civil organizations are calling for a decrease of government intervention in the economy since they believe that true economic improvement will only come after the deregulation of labour markets, infrastructure, trade, the social sector, corporate behaviour and energy. Therefore, deregulation is the only way through which the society will have policies that address inequality and poverty rates.
There are various lessons from successful democracies that show how effective strategies can help deal with poverty and inequality. One of the ways is to institutionalize the right that allows citizens to organize and contest public policies. Also, the political parties need to be embedded within broad social coalitions that comprise of the active participation of disadvantaged groups such as the poor and women an giving social groups a voice so that they can hold the government and policymakers accountable when it comes to the creation of development policies. Lastly, democratic regimes are competitive and allow for periodic changes that prevent the ruling parties from becoming complacent. One key policy measure that can helped Australia address its inequality and poverty rates is increasing the minimum wage and expanding the earned income tax. Research has shown that increasing higher wages of persons will help reduce inequality since the pay gap between the executives and the other workers reduces. Executives are one of the rich persons in our society. Also, increasing the minimum will help millions of persons out of poverty and add more income to the overall income of Australia. Ultimately, increasing the minimum helps enhance both social and economic development. Expanding the earned income tax has had a positive impact on families and helped in lifting millions of children above the poverty line every year. Also, expanding the earned income tax offers economic supports to the working poor and in particular the single parents who are entering the workforce. Lastly, most nations that have understood how to successfully exploit the benefits of globalization have adopted heterodox policies that reflect national conditions instead of just embracing the market-conforming methods. Different countries pursue different methods to address poverty and inequality. For instance, evidence shows that industrialization has helped some nations to improve the income and well-being of their citizens. However, industrialization is not the only way of addressing poverty and inequality. Governments need to do research and determine what best works for their societies. Policymakers need to create that are effective for their nations since the policy space means that countries and societies have the option to adopt different models of development which gurantee structural change that will help address poverty and inequality.
In conclusion, there are many and good ideas on how to tackle inequality. Organizations at the forefront of combating inequality both in Australia and globally have proposed various ranges of solutions and it is time for governments to listen and engage. For instance, in Australia, there is the Close the Gap Campaign which was launched with the help of Oxfam and it seeks to provide a wide range of recommendations to the government on how to deal with inequality particularly in the health sector. Moreover, non-governmental organizations, unions and Australians from all walks of life are concerned about the growing rates of inequality and poverty and they want to see the government making some progress towards reducing these rates. On a global level, civil society organizations and policymakers have been calling on governments to not only act on the increasing inequality and poverty within their borders but to help tackle these issues around the globe. Therefore, for poverty and inequality rates to decrease, Australia and the world needs to take a comprehensive action that will make sure policies are right, human rights are upheld and businesses treat their employees well. Australia and the world needs equality so that their can be positive social, political and developments that are vital for ensuring that all persons have enough resources and are able to take care of themselves.