Great! An excellent discussion on their respective party economic policies by Bill English and David Parker on this morning’s Nine to Noon programme.
But why, oh why, do we have to put up with their using averages all the time. “The average wage in NZ has risen steadily over the last few years under the National Government.”
This is dishonest or at least used to mislead. After all the “average wage” is just a proxy for the total wage bill for everyone. Just because you divide it by the number of workers does NOT change its meaning at all.
It does not say anything about the distribution of the total wage bill. Who gets most of the increase, who gets none of it. It is quite possible, and I suspect the actual case, that the 20 to 30% paid to the highest earners adds enough to the total to improve it, and hence the average, without workers on the lowest wages getting any more at all.
What we need from the official statisticians is some publicity over the way the improvements in the total wage bill are shared across society. How about the median wage, for example, has the middle wage-earner got more in his/her pocket? Better still, let’s have a look at the actual improvement in wages in 10% bands from the least well paid to the richest.
That would really tell us how the economy is going for all New Zealanders.