Comment

The living wage issue seems to simmer away, meanwhile our welfare system has reached a Pythonesque situation with the only real beneficiaries seeming to be large, mainly overseas, companies.

Realising that the minimum wage fell well short of what is required to live on the Helen Clark government instituted the ‘Working for Families’ scheme where by those on low wages had these topped up by the government. This had the flow on affect of abrogating employer’s responsibility to pay a decent wage.
Who are the major minimum wage employers? The large fast food chains, cleaning companies, rest and retirement home operators, and major retailers. Mainly overseas owned companies who claim that they can not afford to pay a decent wage while at the same time showing very healthy annual profits, mostly to be sent to their offshore investors. It must be noted that the retailers do not include the New Zealand owned Warehouse/Noel Leeming group which do pay above the minimum wage.

An interesting angle on why his trust does not pay it’s staff a living wage came from the CEO of Trust House who explained that if it did so there would be less money available for grants.
The second group to benefit from government largess are the landlords, the majority being in the high rent Auckland and Christchurch areas. With the government topping up rent shortfalls landlords can increase their portfolios by bidding up house prices knowing that the resulting increased rental costs are covered. Not only resulting in ever increasing Housing Supplement budgets but also squeezing prospective home owners out of the market.

The government is locked into this money go round of providing money to all and sundry. Of course it is easy for a government to flick large quantities of money around, it is not ‘the government’s ’ money but what it has taken from the ever suffering taxpayers.

There was a fairer time, not that long ago, when wages were such that people could live on what they received, all these top ups were not necessary. How did we get to how we are, and how do we get out of it? Maybe an economist could produce a blueprint to the road back to normalcy, and maybe there are politicians somewhere strong enough to carry it through. Maybe?