Using the data presented in Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Issue 6302.0 – Average Weekly Earnings, Australia, write a report focusing on Australia weekly earnings commenting on changes over the last seven years

Using the data presented in Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Issue 6302.0 – Average Weekly Earnings, Australia, write a report focusing on Australia weekly earnings commenting on changes over the last seven years as well as comparison between different genders, industries or sectors in light of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) principle “The Common Good”.

Your report should detail current Average Weekly Earnings in Australia and how it has changed over the last seven years. Your report should use a variety of graphs and charts to visually present your data (as per Week 3 Topic), various measures of central tendency and variation (as per Week 4 Topic) to describe the Australia weekly earnings, and time series and index numbers to present changes over time (as per Week 5 Topic). You should then consider your data in the context of CST Principle “The Common Good” and conclude as to Australia’s performance in respect to this principle.

Note that The Common Good principle considers “Every person should have sufficient access to the goods and resources of society so that they can completely and easily live fulfilling lives. The rights of the individual to personal possessions and community resources must be balanced with the needs of the disadvantaged and dispossessed. The common good is reached when we work together to improve the wellbeing of people in our society and the wider world.”

1. Introduction

Description about what the project is about (including what are the objectives, and the what is source of data) 250 Words

within the intro

-introduce the topic

-explain what will be discussed

-Elaborate on the The Common Good principle and its importance

This is a sample introduction:

Australia’s income and wealth distribution has dramatically changed to become worse over the last decade with both distributions being unequal. Australia is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, although many individuals within society are falling behind due to their distribution of income and wealth (Richardson, D., Denniss, R., 2016). For example the top 20 per cent of people have five times more income then the bottom 20 per cent and hold 71 times more wealth (Richardson, D., Denniss, R., 2016). This doesn’t measure up with the Catholic Social teachings (CST) Preferential Option for the Poor and Vulnerable as it calls upon individuals to be challenged to assist those less fortunate. The purpose of these teachings are to evoke its principal; “the purpose of economic activity is to advance all members of society including the most poor and vulnerable”. Some Catholic social teachings include dignity of the human person, the common good and solidarity. Therefore this principal evokes that one’s amount of income and wealth should impact one’s ability to share to those less fortunate.

The most common measures of inequality is the Gini coefficient, which varies between zero and one (Whiteford, P, 2014). This meaning that if everyone had the exactly same income then it would be zero; perfect equality and if one household had all the income then it would be one; complete inequality (Whiteford, P, 2014). In 2010 Australia was ranked the 11th most unequal country out of the 34 OECD (the organisation for economic cooperation and development) members from around the world (Whiteford, P, 2014). Hence reinforcing that both distributions are significantly unequal.

This paper will demonstrate a comparison of Australia’s wealth and income distribution from 2003- 2004 to 2013-2014. Both ABS 6523.0- Household income and wealth, Australia 2013-14 paper and the 2003-04 Household income and income distribution papers are used within this report to show the comparison and increase of these distributions. Three different family structures are also analysed to show comparison as case studies. Couple families with dependent children include (those aged between 0 and 14 years of age or between 15 and 24 years of age who are studying full time) (ABS, 2016). There is also one parent families with dependent children and older households which include (children who have grown up and established their own home or a lone person household due to relationship breakdowns or death of a spouse or a long time illness of a partner) (ABS, 2016). This paper will sort to find the reasons for this trend.

For most households, income is the most important resource to be fulfilled as individuals need to meet their living costs (ABS, 2016). Although, wealth reserves are also considered important as this is how individuals maintain their living standards (ABS, 2016). Therefore it is important to consider both in order to understand the economic circumstances of an individual’s household and how these inequalities affect these households.

2. Distribution of income and wealth in Australia 400 Words

PLEASE USE GRAPHS TO SUPPORT YOUR ARGUMENTS

Same answer for this question

There are a range of measures that can support the analysis of how income and wealth are shared amongst households within Australia. One method includes considering income distribution and wealth by ranking households from lowest to highest income or wealth then dividing the population into five equal groups (quintiles) (ABS, 2016). As can be seen in appendix 1 below. The other method is the Gini coefficient as stated above.

The overall income distribution within the years of the 2003-2004 ABS household income and income distribution paper stated that the mean equivalised disposable household income of all households was $549 per week and the median was $491 as shown in appendix 2 (ABS, 2016). Whereas, in 2013-2014 the mean equivalised disposable income of all households in Australia was $998 with the mean being lower at $844 per week also represented in appendix 2 (ABS, 2016). This difference demonstrates that the distribution of income was relatively small with a small number of people demonstrating a relatively high household income (ABS, 2016). Therefore a clear, distinctive unequal distribution of income is shown and reflects that there is a large proportion of low income households in comparison to a smaller proportion of very high income households (ABS, 2016).

The distribution of wealth as can be shown within appendix 2. Displays that wealth is even more unequal within society. In appendix 2. it can bee seen that the top 20% of all households owned 62% of total households wealth within the years of 2013-2014 (ABS, 2016). Whereas, the lower 20% of households owned less than 1% of all household wealth (ABS, 2016). Therefore this does not evoke catholic social teachings as majority of household owners have a lower income and shows that many households are struggling and not much is being done to combat this inequality from the Government or the society.

The value of the mean household wealth or the total net worth evoked in appendix 2. in 2013-2014 was $809,000 and seems to be relatively stable as compared to the 2011-2012 with $764,500 (ABS, 2016). This figure was considerably higher than in the years of 2003-2004 with $614,500 and the mean value of household assets being $954,800 (ABS, 2016). Therefore there was a dramatic increase in household wealth due to the prices of housing increasing as the cost of living increases as well.

The Gini coefficient for wealth was higher being 0.605 than income due to the vast amount of increase between the both which reflects a greater level of inequality of distribution amongst households within Australia (ABS, 2016). This piece of statistical data increased from 2011-2012 by 0.012 as the data was 0.593 (ABS, 2016).

please correctly reference everything!

ABS stands for the Australian Beuro of Statistics

All must be Australian Stats