Teachers Pay Rise Less Than Inflation

A post by PaulL.

I see in the NZ Herald that teachers have gotten a pay rise of 14.5% by December 2024. Sounds pretty good. But is it?

The same article says that teachers have had no pay rise since July 1, 2021, and that this agreement will carry them through till June 2, 2025. It also says that the CPI for the year to June 22 was 7.3%, and for the year to June 23 was 6.0%. So we know about 13.3%, and they’re 1.2% ahead. How likely is it that inflation in the year to June 24, plus the inflation in the year to June 25, will be less than 1.2% in total? Seems like between 3% per year and 6% per year would be a better forecast – 6-12% in total. Teachers will be going backwards by between 5-10%.

The government actually offered 11.1%, which was less than inflation, and arbitration forced them to settle. I guess their announcement is trying to make a good news story out of something they were forced to do.

The Herald has unquestioningly published the government press material that under National teacher pay had only increased 10%. But of course, under National inflation was generally around 2% a year. It seems that National’s pay rises didn’t keep pace with inflation, but on these numbers, nor do Labour’s.

Interesting that the media aren’t really doing any analysis on the claims.