The rich are getting richer......

How many times have you heard that? The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Why, just the other day I read it in an editorial in that lefty rag, the Manawatu Evening Standard.

This is a graph from the UK, released by National Statistics yesterday, where income inequality is falling.

It illustrates well how incomes are flattened by the tax and benefit system. I'd like to see an equivalent one for NZ, especially since the introduction of Working For Families. Note the final columns and the gap between them. That's the financial cost of state redistribution. The social costs are another matter......