Thursday, November 30, 2006

Cheery thoughts for a dismal day

The lucky British have a 'welfare nation' that is bigger than ours! With spending of 79 billion pounds, on a per head of population basis that equates to 1,316 pounds or $3,777. Ours is only $3,601.


Gordon Brown is to thank for the wonderful expansion of welfare into the homes of "the rich". What a fantastic Prime Minister he is going to make.

4 comments:

Michael said...

That would be fine if NZers earnt as much as Poms. And everything in the UK cost the same as NZ.

But as NZers earn less, and goods cost less I venture to say we spend relatively more than the UK.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Oh good.

Seriously, I think you are right.

Apparently they are spending less on welfare than they are on the NHS so there's a clue.

There is also variation in our super/old-aged pension systems.

Haven't been able to access the Reform site to have a good look.

Anonymous said...

michael stole my thunder. was about to say the same thing.

Use the "Big Mac index" spending power test to get comparitive spending power of NZD vs GBP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_index

Lindsay Mitchell said...

They do have a greater proportion of their working age population on a benefit - 14 percent to our 11 - 12 (unless they are using the wider definition of 15-64 year-olds)