According to the ONS the average Briton took home around £23,000 last year before tax; amazing by global standards but not, it seems, in the view of the Tory press anything to shout about. Yes, according to Messrs Heffer et al Middle England (sic) has been hit/walloped/raped by the new 50% marginal rate of tax, such are their salaries.
In the bizarre land that comprises the mad ramblings of Daily Mail columnists, Mr and Mrs Ordinary in the UK earn more than £150,000 and thus the recent Budget will squeeze them until their pips squeak. This despite the fact less than 2% of Brits earn such an eyewatering sum; indeed, given that the £23k figure is a mean (and thus pulled up by the minority at the top on megabucks), the actual average income is even lower and further away from the heights of top-rate tax. Those on such sums are by definition elite; they are not Middle England, and their goals are very different.
I suspect this fudging of economic and social reality is not accidental. The Right does well when those who benefit from fiscal largesse are convinced of the very opposite; witness the Republicans' success in the 80s and more recently for an American parallel. Presumably the Tories hope that eventually ordinary folk on ordinary pay will hear that they are being taxed more enough times to actual believe it, much as 2 plus 2 can equal 5.
So let's hear it for taxes that hit the top 2% of people and hence pay for the stuff that the other 98% use and cherish. Let's defend Middle England by defending this tax; truly a class war as the Right suggest, but one for the middle and working classes that need to stop being lied to by those who do lose out from progressive politics. Mail writers are not the same as Mail readers, on this issue if nothing else.
Thursday, 30 April 2009
On the pay gap
There are two types of discrimination in the labour market, and only one should be opposed by any intelligent person. Unfortunately that description does not appear to cover the deputy leader of the Labour party.
For a public school educated woman Harriet Harman holds many reputably progressive and sensible views. On the pay gap, however, she is dead wrong. Harman makes the mistake of many of the left in conflating unacceptable discrimination (such as paying a woman less than a man for the same job, itself illegal since Ted Heath's government) and acceptable discrimination of the sort that, when gender is not in the mix, is acceptable, and even celebrated by much of the political spectrum.
An example: at the micro level we have a potential job offer between a man and woman who are identical in every single way except gender and the fact that the woman has had, say, a year-long gap in her CV thanks to childbirth and all that goes with it. The more experienced man will thus get hired; and replicated enough in many other job interviews, this leads to a macro-economy of men earning more than women.
This is not "bad" discrimination; indeed, it is effectively the same thing as someone with a degree obtaining a job over someone with just A-levels. Women are not getting the better-paying jobs because in many cases they are less well-qualified, not because the labour market is bigoted and they are in the same jobs as men but on lower salaries.
There may be ways of dealing with this issue (increased paternity leave as a right and norm for men might be good for everyone), but if the Left does not understand the problem it certainly cannot solve it. Indeed, it detracts attention away from the very real problems in employment concerning class and connections, of which gender plays but a minor part.
For a public school educated woman Harriet Harman holds many reputably progressive and sensible views. On the pay gap, however, she is dead wrong. Harman makes the mistake of many of the left in conflating unacceptable discrimination (such as paying a woman less than a man for the same job, itself illegal since Ted Heath's government) and acceptable discrimination of the sort that, when gender is not in the mix, is acceptable, and even celebrated by much of the political spectrum.
An example: at the micro level we have a potential job offer between a man and woman who are identical in every single way except gender and the fact that the woman has had, say, a year-long gap in her CV thanks to childbirth and all that goes with it. The more experienced man will thus get hired; and replicated enough in many other job interviews, this leads to a macro-economy of men earning more than women.
This is not "bad" discrimination; indeed, it is effectively the same thing as someone with a degree obtaining a job over someone with just A-levels. Women are not getting the better-paying jobs because in many cases they are less well-qualified, not because the labour market is bigoted and they are in the same jobs as men but on lower salaries.
There may be ways of dealing with this issue (increased paternity leave as a right and norm for men might be good for everyone), but if the Left does not understand the problem it certainly cannot solve it. Indeed, it detracts attention away from the very real problems in employment concerning class and connections, of which gender plays but a minor part.
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