Household Incomes
A lot of useful data in the latest household incomes reports from MSD. Some extracts:
- Since the GFC median household income has gown around 3% in real terms a year
- Median disposable household income after taxes and transfers is $73,500, 12% higher than before the GFC
- Bu comparison UK, US, Italy, Spain, France, Germany household incomes have not increased much if at all
- There is no evidence of any sustained rise or fall in BHC household income inequality in the last 20 years using the Gini and top 1% share, or the last 10-15 years using the 90:10 percentile ratio.
- The share of income received by the top 1% of tax payers has been reasonably steady in a 7-9% range since the early 1990s
- Single-earner two-child families with less than $60,000 from wages pay no net income tax
- total income tax paid by each of the bottom four deciles is less than the total transfers received
- Housing costs now take a much greater proportion of household income especially for low-income households
- On all four measures the proportion of children in households in poverty is lower or the same as 2007/08
- For children in workless households, the AHC 60% anchored line poverty rate is around 65%, compared with 10% for those with at least one parent in full-time employment.
So the child poverty rate drops from 65% to 10% in households where at least one adult is working. So the best way to reduce child poverty is by far making sure children do not grow up in households where no one works. That doesn’t eliminate child poverty, but it would reduce it massively.
Also of interest is that median living standards have increased significantly in NZ since the GFC, unlike many other countries.
Also that child poverty rates are lower or at least no higher than under Labour.