Language, the great sanitizer

[callistra]

This article here has caught my attention:

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,21247151-949,00.html

It's about people avoiding paying child support to their children.

First thing that caught my eye:

In Sydney's 25 wealthiest postcodes at least 505 people - almost all men - claim incomes so low they pay the minimum, documents obtained under Freedom of Information show.

I thought, hmmm, interesting. And then there was this.

Across NSW, about one in three of the 218,000 parents making payments to their non-custodial children pay $6 a week. Of these 74,395, many of whom would be welfare dependent, 15,935 are women.

Ok, so let me get this right. "Of these 74,395, many of whom would be welfare dependant, the greatest number responsible for not paying the correct amount is actually men by a ratio of two men for every woman, however we're going to talk about the women instead."

Now, I am severely sleep deprived and while I do not appear to have my already week long headache, mornings are usually good for it hiding for a bit. So I might not be in my right state of mind. Did I read this right? And.... what? Many of whom are welfare dependant? Is this the author conceding that maybe, just maybe, people who pay only $6 a month child support might not actually *have* anything more? This article confuses me.

Comments

[kaths.livejournal.com]

But they don't talk about the women, they're just showing what the proportion is.

also, re the 'many of whom would be welfare dependent', they were talking about how they think a large number of them are using huge salary sacrifice and cash business techniques to bring their declared income down to a minimum level.

I'm not sure why they mentioned many of them being welfare dependent though, as the whole point of the article was those who really aren't, and should be paying more than the token $6 amount of child support.

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

I can't quite see where they're talking about women:
"Rich deadbeat dads cheating their kids
RICH Sydney harbourside suburbs are home to hundreds of deadbeat dads declaring incomes so absurdly low they pay just $6 a week in child support - barely enough for a Happy Meal."

There are some other very dodgy assumptions there, however - since when did an individual's postcode determine their income? Should we assume that every person in a suburb earns that suburb's median income for accounting purposes? That'll be a big problem for a whole lot of students, live-in domestic labourers, and Homeswest dwellers come tax time.

[leahcim.livejournal.com]

My conclusion drawn from the series of statistical non sequiturs that seems to pass for journalism these days: 68% of statistics are made up on the spot.

(Of course, I know that in this case they're not, but they might as well have been)

[laughingimp.livejournal.com]

Does the Aussie dollar have vastly more spending power than the American dollar, or is six bucks a week profoundly insulting over there, too?

/asks the guy whose dad uprooted and moved three times rather than give his kids a nickel

[callistra.livejournal.com]

Yes.
I think it's the legal minimum.

[foamiethegreeny.livejournal.com]

It's the legal minimum, It's mainly aimed at those on the dole. So they have to take some responsibility even if it's only $6. The corker is if you don't do you tax return the then they can't do much. They can do a short term amount if your a PAYG but it takes about 12 weeks and only lasts 26 weeks then you start again really fucked up system. Oh you need to pay back payment though say you owe $1500 for the 3 month of paper work time then you have to pay an extra $10 a week and they will take tax return surpluses if you ever do one. but you would not do one as not doing a return keeps you in the paper loop of only paying 6 months in 12 of child support. System was designed by father not want to pay child support i'm sure. The story did point out that 1/3 off low payee are women Bias against women yes. But Saying 2/3 are men is the bias on other foot. Balanced would be stating both in black and white, But being balanced doesn't usually fit with agenders

[fred-mouse.livejournal.com]

the second quote above is about the parents who _do_ make their payments. And when you have a dichotomous variable, if you talk about one value, you automatically talk about the other. But a reason for emphasising that there are women involved is so that people won't jump to the conclusion that all of the people in that situation are men, which is probably the default conclusion. And while I don't think that there are value judgements in the figures, the reporting is dodgy.

Having read the original article, the last paragraph (the second quote) doesn't fit with the tenor of the rest of the article. It does, however, give perspective - there are about 500 people in the position of being targetted because of where they live, compared to nearly 75,000 who are believed to be paying very little because that is all that they can afford.