YOU don’t need to be an economist to understand that if you take money out of people’s pockets, those people are going to spend less.
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When that happens, the flow-on effects for business can be disastrous.
Lavington’s Nicole Boswell points out that penalty rates in her pay each week make up $170.
Miss Boswell says taking that away would make meeting her commitments of a mortgage, bills and feeding her children a much harder task.
But looking at her situation in terms of the ripple effect within her community, her ability to indulge in any discretionary spending would evaporate.
An independent study on the issue released in Albury yesterday found the Farrer electorate economically would be up to $8.3 million worse off a year.
While business might argue scrapping penalty rates would allow them to employ more workers, there would be a very real danger that we would end up with a significant part of our population as “working poor”.
More jobs are great but if people don’t have the ability to spend money they have earned on anything more than the basics, we are going to have to accept there will be some businesses that won’t continue to be around to employ anyone.