Poor working less during crisis: poll

Poorer workers are working less as the financial crisis hits home - but better paid
workers are spending more time at the office.
A poll has found almost 40 per cent of employees earning under $1000 a week have had
their hours cut back over the last year. Far fewer were working more hours.
But the situation was reversed for people earning over $1600 a week - 40 per cent
were working more hours.
More than 700 workers were surveyed in the Essential Research poll, released on Monday.
The poll also found strong support for the federal government's push to wind back
the 30 per cent rebate for private health insurance for the better-off.
More than half of respondents supported it, compared with 28 per cent against.
Even high-income earners did not oppose the move, which the opposition has knocked
back in the Senate.
There was also strong support for the recent decision of Federal Police to reopen
investigations into the death of five Australian journalists in East Timor in 1975.