Social Reporting

The concept of an annual social report for New Zealand is not a bad one. But what it measures is all important.

If as suggested it will measure family incomes against the median family income, then it will just be a useless politically motivated report advocating socialism, not a useful measure of low incomes or poverty.

I absolutely reject that if the low income families have a 20% increase in their real income, that this should be seen as making them “poorer” because other families had a 25% increase. This is all families getting richer which we should celebrate, not mourn.