As we move into State of Origin season let’s check out the employment situation on a state by state basis.
First let’s check out the employment growth in April in seasonally adjusted terms. It’s always a bit iffy to look at state unemployment this way but it’s fun nonetheless.
Last month when the unemployment rate rose to 5.6% I summarized it saying:
And that’ll do use for another month. Not great – 5,6% is certainly above where you’d like to be, but the trend of 5.5% at least gives us some hope that the March figures were just a bit of a blip to go along with the opposite sided blip in February.
My Drum post today looks at some of the pretty misleading graphs being used on political parties websites.
I suggest that when you start seeing these graphs you really need to put on your sceptical hat because there’s often a fair bit of trickery going on.
In a move which I didn’t see coming, the RBA today cut the cash rate by 25 basis points to 2.75%.
My Drum piece this week looked at the announcement of a $12b fall in expected revenue and the claims and counter claims about what this means about revenue and the budget.
As a general rule I hate it when people start talking about total tax in nominal dollar amounts.
Usually when they do they’re trying to sell you something. Like the Liberal Party is currently with this graph it has put on its Facebook page:
The CPI figures for the March quarter were released today by the ABS, showing a next to nothing change of 0.1% in seasonally adjusted terms (0.4% in the original data, if you like that sort of thing). This means in annual terms the rise was 2.5% or smack bang right in the middle of the RBA’s 2-3% band.
OK First the long term view:
My Drum piece this week was looking at suggestions the progressive income taxation is a bad thing, and that Australia has an overly progressive tax regime.
Well now. What an interesting set of numbers. Have had a bit of a long day, so there’s a stack of graphs, but the writing is at a minimum.
My Drum piece this week makes use of the census data released by the ABS a couple weeks ago that makes use of the Indices of Relative Advantage and Disadvantage. I’ve actually been quite surprised that these haven’t received broader coverage.
If there has been one aspect of the debate over superannuation taxes that has become clearer to me as it has gone on is that it is really just the first salvo in the war by vested interest groups, and equally vested media groups for a move to a flat income tax.
We now live in an environment where the suggestion of progressive taxation results in media articles accusing proponents of indulging in class warfare.