Nothing wrong with being rich
5:00AM Tuesday April 10, 2007
The rich are getting richer in New Zealand. Statistics NZ's latest survey of wealth distribution finds that we are getting steadily more "unequal". The richer half of the population now owns 95 per cent of the nation's wealth, up from 93 per cent at a previous survey in 2001. The richest 10 per cent own more than half the wealth, having increased their share from 48 per cent in 2001 to 52 per cent in 2003-04 when the latest survey was taken.
These figures will be seized on with a vengeance in university social science faculties and recycled for the next few years in every piece of research on our collective condition. The numbers will cause palpitations in the ranks of a Labour Party that has been in power for seven years now. The Government will say the figures do not catch the impact of its welfare package, Working for Families, since 2004, but social scientists will say those wage supplements have only widened the disparity for beneficiaries and low paid workers without children.
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