Greens
The Greens have been circulating this image. There are a number of issues with it.
First of all, it is not a photo of a Kiwi student. It is a generic photo you can find here, here, here and here. I suspect is comes from a photo library, and someone should ask the Greens if they paid for the photo, or just swiped it off the Internet?
But even worse for the Greens, is that almost every single fact is wrong.
The minimum wage last week was $13.50 (not $13.75). For a 40 hour week that is $540 a week, which is $28,080 for 52 weeks. That makes them tax code ME SL.
The IRD calculator states that last week their PAYE was $74.83, student loan deduction $17.30 and KiwiSaver $10.80. That is a net pay of $437.07 – not $455.
So they are already out by $17 a week.
Now also be aware that they are lying when they state Sandy has her wage cut from $13.75 to $11.00. It is illegal for the new starting off wage to be applied to an existing job.
If they are claiming she was unemployed last week, then she was on $153 a week, not $445 or $437. And she might not have her job if it were not for the ability of an employer to offer her a starting off wage.
But even if we put this to one side, their sums are still further wrong. If her gross wage did drop from $540 to $440 a week, then her student loan repayments also drop – from $17.30 a week to $8.76 a week (even at the 12% rate). So rather than have repayments increase by $5, they drop by around $9.
Also they have not taken into account the wage difference with KiwiSaver. The deduction at 2% was $10.80 and at 3% on a lower wage is $13.20 – a change of $2.40, not $4.00.
So in summary, the Greens:
- Misrepresented the minimum wage change
- Inaccurately stated the minimum wage last week was $13.75
- Miscalculated the take home pay last week (they were wrong at $13.50 and $13.75)
- Miscalculated the change in student loan repayments
- Miscalculated the change in Kiwisaver deductions
This is pretty gross incompetence for a political party with you know staff and MPs. There is nothing difficult about going to the IRD website and using their calculator. Their advertisement is false and misleading and they should withdraw it until corrected.
UPDATE: It gets even worse for the Greens. A commenter has pointed out the starting out wage only comes in as an option on 1 May 2013. So it is a total fail. A fake 18 year old girl, fake calculations and fake dates.
A better rival graphic from Act on Campus:
