Is a living wage affordable?

In Scrap welfare and pay everyone, even the jobless, a living wage Crispin Hull argues that a living wage would not cost that much.

Welfare costs us $6000 each. Where does it go?

Joe Hockey has claimed:

This year the Australian government will spend on average over $6,000 on welfare for every man, woman and child in the country.

In What do we get for $6000 each on social security? Matt Cowgill shows where that $6000 goes. Here's his graph explaining it:

As Matt says:

Australians pay $6000 each, on average, to provide care to the elderly and veterans, to ensure the unemployed have something to eat, to give people with disability some independence and care. We pay $6000 each to ensure that we live in a civilised place. To me that seems like an extraordinarily good deal.

I agree.

Tighter means testing may be counterproductive

In Australia’s already progressive tax system doesn’t need further tightening Greg Jericho explains how tightening means testing on welfare can decrease people's incentive to work.