Quote:
Originally Posted by claytonender
Ok
Whilst I agree the £28,000 figure is perfectly plausible, my arguement is that most households in Hyndburn have income of less than this. It is an average, and as you know averages are inflated by people who earn higher wages (I know there are some in Hyndurn - but my argument is that the majority earn much less).
It would be interesting to see the average wage broken down by ward (and polling district within each ward). I think then you would find that in most wards (whre the Band A properies are situated) the household and per capita income is much smaller).
Your average wage for a man working within Hyndburn in 2007 is £21662 (which is £11.26 an hour). I think you will find that most jobs in Hyndburn are paying much less than this. Averages will always be just that, can you please show me evidence of adverts for jobs that justify your figures.
Also single person households only get a 25% reduction in Council Tax, which you have failed to mention in your post.
You have also failed to take into consideration households where there are 2 pensioners. If there joint pension Is £192.37 a week (£10,000 per annum) with modest savings, they would get no help with Council Tax. You have to remember that whilst State Retirement Pension is increased every year, many private pensions do not increase from the level that they when they were first paid.
I appreciate that you are a student and used to doing research, so you must excuse a 'poor' pensioner for trying to dissect your arguments.
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It was an average figure of people working WITHIN Hyndburn not people who live in Hyndburn and work outside in say Manchester or whatever. I know some people will earn more than average, hence the name, but its Hyndburn I don't think theres hundreds of people earning £100,000+ skewing the statistics. The vast majority of people live in bands A&B, hence the average will be more representative of them, not the 11% of people that live in bands D, E, F, G & H.
As you will appreciate it is very hard to find these specific figures but I'm trying my hardest.
I can only get ward figures from 2001 and 2004. The 2004 figures include merged wards and things for all except Rishton, so I've used Rishton because the two data years are directly comparable.
In Rishton the average household income has increased 15% over 3 years which is 5% per year, so if that were to continue it would be 45% from 1999-2008, obviously the 45% figure is an estimate, but it's a fairy accurate one since it goes along with all the other statistics I've posted.
Here are the first 5 permanent full time jobs from fish4jobs within 10miles of Accrington:
Welder/Fitter: £20,000
Customer account manager: £18,000 + OTE £23k
Payroll Administrator: £15,000-£19,000
Skilled CNC Turner: £25,000-£27,000
Project Engineer: £22,000-£25,000
Of course you won't jump into high earning jobs right away, they need skills and experience, but that's just the way the world works.
Pensioners get all sorts of other benefits, and they get help with council tax unless they have over £16,000 saved. Even then they're still entitled to a 25% discount if they're on their own. If you still don't think the additional benefits pensioners get outweighs them having to pay full council tax if they have more than £16,000 saved and are living together, then you can advocate increasing the state pension or reducing further the amount pensioners have to pay for council tax.
My argument is that the 45% rise in council tax has been less than the rise in earnings for the vast majority of people. Therefore we have it quite good in terms of how much we're having to pay compared with the rest of the country who are experiencing rises of more than 100%. I know they earn more, but this is in terms of percent. I only wish we could have a unitary authority so we didn't have to pay county council.
I'm having fun doing all this research even if I am supposed to be on holiday. I was trying to keep my posts short, but I haven't been able to manage it with this one, sorry.
