This is why we need a living wage
More free healthcare for kids and extended parental leave are both great ideas in the Budget – stolen from Labour of course but I’m still glad they’re doing them.
Nonetheless, this can’t seriously be called a “family focussed” budget while they’re still doing next to nothing about the housing affordability crisis, the jobs crisis, child poverty and inequality.
Perhaps (though only perhaps) it’s more fair to say that they’re not ignoring these issues; they just have faith in the magical power of the market to solve them all.
But their own numbers show that’s working about as well as Brownlee’s “let the market sort it out” worked for the Christchurch housing crisis. Yes, the economy is growing again, but that growth isn’t making its way into the pockets of ordinary workers. From 2014-2018, they’re forecasting 14.2% GDP growth, but only 4% wage growth.
In fact, this supports Thomas Piketty’s inequality thesis quite nicely: the natural and inevitable movement of capitalism is for wealth to accrue to the already-wealthy. In other words, you can’t solve inequality and poverty just by growing the economy. You need more radical interventions, as Piketty suggests. Mana’s tax policy – shifting the tax burden from poor and middle-income earners to the unproductive, untaxed income of the 1% – is a good start. Another much-needed policy is a minimum wage that allows people to live with dignity in society – the calculated Living Wage. This would mitigate against inequality across the board and end working poverty.
We can no longer use tough economic times as an excuse. We can afford these measures; we just need to decide to prioritise them, instead of letting our economic growth accrue to the unproductive parasite 1%.
Cut Your Hair 
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