Kiwis keep more money

[MotherBear]

Workers in NZ keep more pay than US, Australia
5:00AM Friday March 02, 2007
By Brian Fallow

New Zealand may be in the bottom third of the developed countries' league table for wages, but workers get to take home a higher share than almost anywhere.

The Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development's Taxing Wages report out yesterday shows the average gross wage earnings of a single person in New Zealand last year were 11.6 per cent below the unweighted average for the 30-nation group. Only eight countries, mainly in eastern Europe, were lower.

But the gap between what it costs to employ someone and that person's take-home pay is narrower than in any other OECD country except Korea and Mexico.

So the net wage for a single person on the average gross wage is only 3.8 per cent lower than the OECD average.

More here .