[ExI] Psychology of "Entitlements"

[Alejandro Dubrovsky]

On Fri, 2009-05-15 at 17:13 +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:

> I'm still not sure I understand: are you saying that if you had modest
> savings you would not have found another job? Where I live it takes
> about 5 to 7 years savings for someone on the average wage in order to
> sustain themselves at the level of the dole for the rest of their
> life. So most people could retire before they're 30, if they would be
> satisfied with the dole. Is this a problem? 

I don't think you've done your calculations correctly:
Average full time salary in Aus is very close to 50k, which leaves 40k
after tax if you don't owe HECS (37 otherwise).  Dole is 15k with rent
assistance, but before all the other benefits (concession card,
telephone assistance, etc).  If you assume you are happy to live on the
same amount of money while working full time as you are on the dole
(very hard, much more expensive to have to get out of the house every
day and also to keep work-stress manageable without money), you can save
25k per year.  7 years gives you 175k, good for under 12 more years of
dole equivalent.   7 on/12 off is not a terrible split, and I hope I can
do that, but it's not 7 on/infinity off.

(Disclaimer:  I only got out of the dole because they started hassling
me with the dole diary.  That was work.)