Archive for March 18th, 2008
Now the tough one: AU, money, and you
March 18, 2008Money. Since beginning consideration of your compatibility with Australia, I’ve discussed two of the three traditional areas of concern: degree of neatness and sex. I took the easy one’s first.
Money is the tough one. First, flying to an Aussie destination from the US will cost you couple of thousand at least, maybe much more, for a round-trip ticket, and then you’ll need food (expensive) and lodging (very expensive).
It helps a little, of course, that your US dollar will still get you an Australian dollar and nine cents more, and maybe you are one of the fortunate few who don’t have to worry about such things. A “New York Times” story this past week said there are in the world today 2,000 superyachts (120 to more than 500 feet long, valued in millions) and about 200,000 people could afford to buy one of them.
Are you more interested in the minimum wage than the price of yachts? You could be in luck here. Is the minimum wage still about $5.50 per hour in Texas and up to around $10 in one or more states of the US? I know middle- and low-income earners in the US have been losing ground.
It doesn’t seem so here. Aussies prefer to speak in terms of minimum wage per week and a week is counted as 38 hours of work. The current, Australia-wide minimum wage is $522.12 or $13.74/hour (US$12.60).
The Australian Fair Pay Commission (AFPC) wants to give the lowest-paid workers here a $26/week raise to $548.12/week or $14.42/hour (US$13.23). Unions want more. The Rudd government is expected to decide soon.
No worries, though, if you’re between 18 and 45 years of age, and your training or experience qualifies you for a 457, skilled migrant worker, visa. That lets you stay four years, at least, and according to this morning’s newspapers, you won’t be worrying about the minimum wage.
“The Australian” has a front-page story today by Paul Maley and Matthew Franklin saying Australia’s full-employment economy is currently paying skilled migrants $15,000 more per year than the average Australian earns.
Here are a few facts from that story:
1. In 2006-07, the average skilled migrant’s salary was $71,600 (US$65,682) while the average salary Read the rest of this entry »