Basic benefit values were cut from 40% to 30 percent of the average wage in the early-1990s. Those cuts were dubbed Ruthenasia in recognition of the role of the then Minister of Finance of the newly-elected National Party Ruth Richardson who delivered the budget with the cuts.
Today the value of an adult “Jobseeker Support” benefit has been further reduced to only 16% of the average wage. This was achieved because under both Labour and National governments since then all benefits only increase by the movement of the Consumer Price Index not average wage movements.
A sole parent benefit has gone from over 50% of the average wage to 25%.
In addition, the number of people accessing an unemployment benefit in relation to the household labour force survey estimate of the number of unemployed people has halved from around 100% to only 50% since 2004. Nearly all the decrease occurred under the Labour government.
Escalating housing costs are the final nail in the coffin for low wage income and beneficiary household. The lowest 20 percent of earners spent 54 percent of their income on housing in 2015, compared with just 29 percent in the late 1980s.
A class war has been waged by the very rich owners of capital on working people and the poor more generally.
The share of total household income going to families in the bottom 40 percent has fallen from 24 percent in the mid-1980s to 19 percent last year.
Yes your right Mike both parties and their policies have done a lot of damage to many NZers especially those at the bottom but now we need one of these parties to fix the mess they created.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/109978846/export-industry-dodges-bullet
Therefore anyone advocating against slavery-like practices was fair game under the GCSB act?
Labour better perform for Maori or they will lose those seats just as the last lot did that went to the right. Cutting social spending and selling state houses at time when we have a shortage is very dumb short term thinking and bad policy (the national party still went ahead though) why ? they said the market will provide but it cant when it doesn’t have enough houses or people to build them. National had nine years to build houses in the nine years they have destroyed our country and divided many people.
Real vaccum in the Maori Seats, Maori Party blew it siding with National, and Winston/NZF want to abolish the Maori Seats and Labour only pay lip service to Maori to get the votes. Room for a New Maori Party
Room for a new Maori party, well this will depend on the quality of candidates they can put up, its hard to get good onto it candidates and ones that aren’t afraid to stand up for our people. Many cant cope with the environment and when they get in they forget what they are there for. I think we need to see what happens over the next two years I didn’t have any faith in Te Ururoa, he in my view is not a politician his expertise is education. He sat back and let the coalition neglect public schools where most of our Maori kids go to school he is an educationalist. He also sat back and let them sell sate houses. I use to vote for Hone he is never afraid to fight for his people he made the mistake of going with d-com and the rest is history.
The Maori Party blew their credibility by indicating they would go with Labour if elected. Those that rembered how badly Labour has treated Maori (seabed and foreshore ) voted National and others thought they may as well vote Labour to try and secure a stronger bargaining position. Labour has taken away the charter schools which were so good for those Maori lucky enough to attend and only played lip service to other causes meant to help Maori. With strong candidates like Dr Lance Sullivan they could bounce back next election and be the strong partner National needs
It was Helen Clarkes government that treated Maori badly over the foreshore and seabed but what did national do to make it better ? nothing! that’s what and they seem to have got away with that weak stance. We have a new government now with many new up and coming Maori politicians and some other very competent politicians like Andrew Little who cares and these people need to be given a chance its early days. National were given three terms to deliver their brighter future it never happened and now its the new coalitions turn to see if they can deliver.
Well described Mike
Generating solidarity and understanding between unemployed, precarious, and fully employed workers remains difficult with NZ’s high numbers of self employed, SOEs and under 5 staff operations, and big petty bourgeois sector
many people have “last place aversion” and blame beneficiaries “bad attitude” for their plight, rather than macroeconomic factors that affect all of us, low paid often resent beneficiaries getting any support, and as the HLFS survey shows, many go to any lengths to avoid having to interact with the punitive WINZ/MSD
political pressure from all who can be united has to go on the new Govt. to drop its lingering support for neo liberalism and fix this generational wrong to so many of our citizens and their families
Please add the rent divide.
“The report said the lowest 20 percent of earners spent 54 percent of their income on housing in 2015, compared with just 29 percent in the late 1980s.” (These figures are from 2016…my hunch is a rapid deterioration)
And the Energy divide
“100,000 households are experiencing what’s being called “energy hardship,” where they are spending more than 10 percent of their income on power.”
And the Education divide.
For children starting state school this year, the total cost, including fees, extracurricular activities, other necessities, transport and computers, by the time they finish year 13 in 2028 is estimated at $35,064 by education-focused savings trust Australian Scholarship Group.
…oh heck, forget it, lets just stick with calling it a good old fashioned class divide, pure and simple.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/75885636/null
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/312895/nz's-poorest-spend-half-their-pay-on-housing
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/366225/residential-power-prices-rise-79-percent-in-28-years
I see FEMA camps on the horizon for the unemployed and homeless.
And yet people still line up to vote for these characters……makes no sense to me……
have a look who is voting for who I noticed a lot of our elderly vote for national especially our pakeha elderly is it because they are better of and they have benefitted from past government policies helping them into homes etc and now they don’t care about our young people who are our future. There seems to be a lot of selfishness.
Single person superannuation is less than the after tax adult minimum wage.
If the adult minimum is too little to live on…
then what do you say to disabled people and pensioners who have no chance at all of improving their incomes?
And still have to pay obscene amounts for power, rates/rent. health care?
Who needs the humiliation of having to go to WINZ for ‘top ups’?
Or is humiliation and deprivation where it’s at?
@Andrea- They have nothing to say because it doesn’t affect them so it’s not their problem till it happens to them and then it’s ‘oh I had had no idea it was so bad!’
Labour passed the nat government introduced Social Security (Rewrite) Act at the end of last year. Par for the course for Labour, supporting neoliberal war-on-the-poor social welfare legislation. Labour is a bunch of duplicitous arseholes.
The poor in New Zealand can not be f%$ked voting and have behavioral patterns similar to the Liverpudlian Gypsies who are travelling around the country at present.
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