RESEARCH PROJECT – INEQUALITY (INCOME)
Income inequality is a measurement of the distribution of income that highlights the differences between individuals or households making most of the income in a given area and those making very little. I chose to research this area of inequality as it seems to lead to various other inequalities and therefore has a significant impact upon the people of Australia.
There are many factors in society that can lead to income inequality:
Rapid Population Growth – this causes inner city and outer suburban sprawl. low income earners are forced out to the suburbs to find affordable housing. This in turn leads to more disadvantage as jobs are scarcer in outer areas and people who live there usually have to spend more on petrol travelling to work as public transport is not a viable option. Access to services, such as internet connections, can also be limited placing these people at a further disadvantage. This also leads to areas of great disadvantage and areas of high wealth
Income Tax Charges and the G.S.T. – the introduction of the G.S.T. had an adverse effect on lower income earners as they had no choice but to purchase food, clothing and housing which increased the amount of tax they had to pay. The G.S.T did decrease inequality by forcing high income earning individuals who employ tax dodging methods to pay tax on the purchase of luxury items. Our progressive income tax system is designed to achieve substantive equality.
The Term Paper on Income Inequality and Redistributive Policies
This paper discusses the factors that determine the increase in pay gap between top executives and the average worker. Income inequality has continued to be an economic issue in the United States. The changes in income inequality in the United States have been researched and well documented. The findings reveal an alarming state of affairs concerning income inequality in the country. Most labor ...
Unemployment – Unemployment combined with the rise of smaller households and single parent families have been major factors driving ongoing rises in poverty and income inequality (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] 2008).
The ongoing importance of unemployment as a key driver of disadvantage is of particular concern given the recent resurgence of unemployment as a result of the economic turndown during the Global Financial Crisis.
Decreasing number of people per household – When household numbers decrease and the population increases, the demand for housing increases as well. This forces even more people into the suburbs to find affordable accommodation, increasing their cost of getting to and from work and increasing the gap between low and high income earners.
Climate Change – adds to the burden of low income earners as they are unable to afford the purchase of new technologies and products to help lower the cost of basic necessities like water and power whereas higher income earners will be able to purchase and use these products to lower their living costs.
The facts – Internationally, the 2009 OECD Fact book ranks Australia sixteen out of thirty OECD countries, or about half way, using data from 2003–04. The country with the least income inequality was Denmark (0.232), and the country with the greatest income inequality was Mexico (0.474).
Over the period 1986–2006, the income distribution in Melbourne polarised: the numbers of low and high income households increased while those with middle incomes fell. At the same time, the gap in median house prices between Melbourne’s highest and lowest cost Statistical Subdivisions more than doubled, which considerably restricted the potential residential location choices of Melbourne’s low income households. The net result is that this income inequality has become mapped onto the city, creating neighbourhoods of extreme advantage and disadvantage.
The Essay on Target High Risk Areas For Medication Errors
Target High Risk Areas for Medication Errors Medication errors are among the biggest issues in health care settings today. The effect of managed care is one of the causative factors. The need to contain costs has invariably doubled the nurses' workload making them less efficient as caregivers. Example of problem is the high incidence of medication errors. Nurses' workload has increased ...
Since 2006, housing affordability has continued to be a serious problem for people renting their homes. According to the March 2008 Rental Report (DHS 2008), only 20.8% of all new lettings across the state were affordable to lower income households. The drop in affordable rental accommodation was significant during that period, especially in metropolitan Melbourne. Across Melbourne just 8.9% of dwellings let in the March quarter were affordable, compared to 16.8 % of dwellings in the same quarter in the previous year.
In Melbourne, many inner city areas like Melbourne City and Stonnington had higher inequality. It is in these areas that we would expect lower wellbeing, according to the analysis in Wilkinson and Pickett’s book. And in many cases, that appears to be true. When we look at some variables representing disadvantage in an area (proportion of indigenous people, unemployment rates, occupation, education, poverty rates and housing tenure), the areas with high income inequality also seem to be areas of high disadvantage. In other words, the areas with the highest inequality tended to have a higher proportion of Indigenous people, a higher proportion of public housing and a higher proportion of people in poverty.
From the data presented it is evident that gap between low income earners and high income earners in Australia is continuing to grow. As there are so many types of influence upon this area, the solution will be complex and difficult to achieve.
