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Talking in Napier
Here’s a shot from Thursday night’s talk in Napier – a full house at Beattie and Forbes bookshop. Thanks to James Landon for the picture. James notes that in the crowd “were 3 prospective Regional...
View ArticleThe reality of unemployment
It’s sometimes said that people living in poverty just need to try harder, but I’m not sure how much more Amy Scott, profiled today in The Press, could be doing: Amy Scott and her two children have...
View ArticleWhy the poverty line is valid, and 265,000 children really are in poverty
One of the responses to the recent report on child poverty, showing that 265,000 New Zealand children live below the poverty line, is to say that the measurements are flawed. This, from a blog on the...
View ArticleResponse to Living Wage criticism
Following recent criticism of the Living Wage calculations by Brian Scott, Charles Waldegrave, one of the principal creators of the methodology, responds here....
View ArticleThe fallacy that most wealth is earned
Today’s Morning Report interviewed Oliver Williams from something called Wealth Insight, a consultancy, arguing that the world’s first trillionaire would be created within 50 years. Predictably,...
View ArticleKeeping up the pressure on child poverty
Catriona Maclennan (barrister, journalist and social activist) has started a series on Face TV about child poverty in New Zealand. This is a huge part of the inequality story – 285,000 children in...
View ArticleOur link to poverty in America
A reader has just emailed in with a link to something she’s been working on: this amazing graphic on poverty in America, and how it’s changed over the past 50 years. One thing that stands out for me is...
View ArticleWellington City Council highest earners calculations
The Dominion Post is running an opinion piece of mine this morning, comparing the cost of paying the Living Wage to Wellington City Council staff (about $1.7 million a year, on campaigners’ estimates)...
View ArticleRevealed: No change in the rich’s income share under National
New data from the IRD shows that the share of taxable income going to the richest New Zealanders has not changed under National. However, that share is still very large, indicating significant income...
View ArticleNew pre-tax income stats out
Data on pre-tax incomes for New Zealand in 2013 have just been uploaded to the World Wealth and Income Database. So what do they show? In 2013, the richest 10% got about 30% of pre-tax income, and...
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