This commentary is an edited version of a recent speech, “Transforming New Zealand’s low wage economy”. Whether we look at international comparisons, or look at whether employees are getting a fair share of the income that their work generates, New Zealand is a low wage economy. New Zealand wages adjusted for the cost of living… Read more »
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The Tax Working Group (TWG) has reported back. The reactions to the proposal for taxing the income from capital gains have ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous and from “it doesn’t go nearly far enough” to “this is the end of the kiwi way of life”. They have exposed a class society where one… Read more »
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This commentary looks at the year ahead. The Prime Minister has described this as the year of ‘delivery’ for the Government and she aint wrong. In addition we need to keep an eye on what’s happening in New Zealand’s economy and society, and how international events could affect us. Numerous Government working parties will report… Read more »
Read more... Newly released statistics allow us to update the share of New Zealand’s income that goes to wages and salaries – the labour share – for the year to March 2018 for the whole economy and to 2017 for individual industries. The labour share of income of income fell from 61.2 percent of Net Domestic Income… Read more »
Read more... In August, the Centre for Labour, Employment and Work (CLEW) at Victoria University released their annual analysis of collective employment agreements (CEAs). It shows again that people who are part of a collective get better pay rises: the union pay premium. For the year to June 2018 CLEW finds that on average wages in CEAs… Read more »
Read more... How well does New Zealand’s tax system perform in reducing inequality? What would be the effect of some likely changes to it discussed in the interim report of the Tax Working Group, released last week? New Zealand’s personal income tax system is very weak in reducing inequality compared to other OECD countries. So is our… Read more »
Read more... It is often said that New Zealand has a low-wage economy in comparison to other high-income countries such as those in their club, the OECD. Business NZ recently disputed that. But there is strong evidence that New Zealand does have low wages. First, a comparison of the purchasing power of annual average wages for full-time… Read more »
Read more... ‘Business confidence’ is falling and we should be very concerned, we are told. But is ‘business confidence’ really falling and is it anything more than an opinion poll of some chief executives as to what they think of the Government of the day, or their impression (which may not be any more accurate than yours… Read more »
Read more... In memoriam: This is the 200th CTU Economic Bulletin. It was founded by my predecessor, Peter Conway, CTU economist and then CTU Secretary, who wrote the first 101 issues. He died just three years ago, on 9 June 2015. We still miss his wisdom, values, activism, music and friendship. The 2018 Budget was a “stop… Read more »
Read more... The new Government’s first Budget will be announced on 17 May. What pressures is it facing? It will be in a pincer between the spending needed to plug the gaping holes in our public services and infrastructure left by the previous Government, and its own Budget Responsibility Rules. These rules restrict its operational spending to… Read more »
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