I was shocked by an article in the New Zealand news today that claimed the average New Zealander's income from wages and salary, when adjusted for inflation, has decreased by NZD $148 per week (approx. US $100) in the past 15 years. That's a decrease of 25%!
In 1989 the average NZer was earning $529.98 per week (about US $350). Last year, the average was $592 (US $394). Australia is doing better, with the average wage over here last year 37% higher than the New Zealand average, while the cost of living in the two countries is approximately the same.
Admittedly the minimum wage in NZ has risen a lot during the same 15 year period, so there are probably fewer people living in the worst sort of poverty, but I bet there's a much higher number of families who are finding it really hard to make ends meet.
I guess it's time for us to stop congratulating ourselves on having the lowest unemployment rate in the world and to start worrying about the fact that there doesn't seem to be quite enough money to go around.
(You can read the rest of the article here.)
Technorati tags: new zealand, australia
Monday, March 06, 2006
And they wonder why so many of us are moving to Australia
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2 Comments:
And now you have come to Australia which is busy trying to cut wages and standards of living. Just to make you Kiwis feel write at home
I guess I've been lucky. Both Geekman's salary and my scholarship here are indexed to the cost of living, which is something I am very impressed by. Plus the unions here seem quite aggressive at "negotiating" frequent pay rises. Maybe that's just in the education sector, though.
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