Widening Income Gaps

The gap between rich and poor is a big problem for New Zealand. International comparisons show New Zealand has one of the widest income gaps in the OECD. Income inequality rose the fastest of any OECD country in the 1980s and ’90s.

The income gap has been made worse by two years of only 25 cent per hour increases in the minimum wage and attacks on our rights at work.
Tax cuts between December 2008 and December 2010 mean that the difference in take-home pay between someone on $30,000 a year and someone on $150,000 increased by over $135 week.
The 20 percent increase in GST hits low income people hardest.The cuts the government wants in Working for Families will slash its value by a third over the next seven years after increasing costs of living are taken into account.
There are still big problems of poverty for families. Between one in four and one in five children live in poverty.
Between June 2008 and June 2010, the average weekly income from wages for Maori barely changed while it fell sharply for Pacific peoples, even before the rising cost of living is taken into account. Their unemployment rates are more than double those of other New Zealanders.
Meanwhile, the highest income 10 percent of people receive at least one third of all income earned.