In today’s paper, an article entitled “Wages crack the $1000 barrier”, came this spot of genius.
A pay packet of $1000 a week is no longer anything to brag about.
Full-time adult ordinary-time earnings — the benchmark for Australia’s average wage — rose to $1008.10 a week in the three months to May 31, or $52,432 a year, the Bureau of Statistics announced yesterday.
Full-time women workers are yet to reach the new pay landmark, averaging $906 a week compared with men on $1064.
Right, so, I’m throwing in a disclaimer here. I don’t do maths as a subject, and haven’t for a while. But I think I know how to average two numbers — correct me if I’m wrong. It goes something like “add them together, and divide by two”.
Women earn $906, men earn $1064. That adds to be $1970. We’re already guessing it’s wrong, because it’s impossible to get 10 cents from that. But hey, I’ll do the sum anyway: it’s $985. And no cents.
It seems there’s more than a few workers of dubious gender in Australia…
Ah, it appears Nick has discovered where I went wrong. The ten cents thing did seem a little too… odd… to be straight out incorrect!
Assuming the work force is comprised of equal numbers of either gender which it undoubtedly isn’t.
Ahh, knew I had to be missing something. The ten cents thing just looked too wrong to be a genuine mistake. Thanks for thinking some more than me :P