Notes on the Front

Commentary on Irish Political Economy by Michael Taft, researcher for SIPTU

Friday Stat Attack – To Those Who Have . . .

I’m sure this will surprise no one but the highest income groups have seen their weekly earnings rise much faster than lower income groups.

FSA - To Those Who Have 1

From the latest period we have data for we see that managers and professionals earn much more than other workers in the economy – twice as much as clerical and production workers.   And they have seen their weekly earnings rise much faster than other workers.

FSA - To Those Who Have 2

Managers and professionals have seen their weekly earnings rise by over 10 percent in the last three years.  Clerical workers' earnings have flat-lined.  Production workers have seen their weekly income fall slightly.

As mentioned previously, we have to bear in mind the compositional effect.  But overall, those with the highest incomes have seen their incomes rise.  Not so, for lower income earners.

As I said, I’m sure no one will be surprised.

3 responses to “Friday Stat Attack – To Those Who Have . . .”

  1. CMK Avatar
    CMK

    Micheal, a persistent trope of right wing attacks on the public sector has been the argument that most people who work in the public sector are in the higher earning deciles. And there is some truth to that. If, however, which is the case after Haddington Road, all of the high earning professionals in the public sector have had their pay cut, then surely if managers et al are seeing a 10% increase in weekly earnings that must mean that, in fact, managers et al in the private sector are seeing increases far beyond that but that pay cuts for their peers in the public sector are bringing the average down?

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  2. 6to5against Avatar
    6to5against

    Hi Michael,
    I’m a big fan of the stat attack idea, but it’s obviously important to spread the posts far and wide. Am I missing the twitter/Facebook buttons?
    My dozen or so followers are being denied this knowledge!

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  3. Michael Taft Avatar
    Michael Taft

    Apologies for not getting back on this – apparently my new servers is not notifying me of comments.
    CMK – The CSO shows that managers in the industrial and services sector experienced increases of 11 percent while in sectors with a high level of public sector involvement (but not totally), increases were 5 percent. Hard to identify the public sector element (e.g. nearly half of the health sector is private sector).
    Also, there are compositional effects. For instance if more middle managers leave, that leaves a higher proportion of senior management. Data will show an average increase even though the senior managers didn’t receive a pay increase (or even had a pay cut).
    Ultimately, one must use common sense. There are higher gains in the private sector. And those gains are likely to accelerate as you go up the pay scale.
    6to5against – I will be putting those buttons on the website. But I’m afraid I will have to wait for assistance from a family member – such is my web-ignorance, I’m likely to crash the site if I try it.

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Commentary on Irish Political Economy by Michael Taft, researcher for SIPTU