I realise that the reference to the poverty line is just a way of speaking but how would you know what your pharmacist is making? Do you know any well enough for them to tell you what their income is?
It is common for us to say “All [fill in profession] are wealthy and charge too much”, where doctors, lawyers and pharmacists are always the target but sometimes it is tradesmen and others.
Some are quite wealthy indeed but they are usually highly qualified, experienced, older practitioners or those who own practices so that their income is more than their own billable hours. That does not mean all of the target profession, especially younger ones who work for others, are rich.
If you google ‘pharmacists salary Australia’ you will get figures ranging from $32 to $80 per hour, with several around $50. Unless all those employment agencies are underestimating for some reason that is not a lot. More objective sources such as ABS do not provide data at the individual profession level that I can see. If anybody has a better source please speak up. These figures are not for the owners of high volume inner city pharmacies, which is a different question.
The topic of the loss of dispensing fees and how reasonable that may be has been covered at length here.
