Saturday, August 04, 2018

Don't worry about facts - just rage

Don't think I have come across this commentator before - Simon Wilson writing in the NZ Herald. All gloom and doom and crisis, crisis.

Inequality:

"Council of Trade Unions (CTU) economist Bill Rosenberg calls it a "hollowing out of the wage scale". Inequality is growing and the people taking the biggest hit are those in the middle and the lower middle. Mostly, that includes self-employed people.

It's worse for non-working beneficiaries. We don't have a DPB (Domestic Purposes Benefit) any more, but there is an equivalent payment package in the benefit system.

Rosenberg has calculated that even if we raised that payment by 25 per cent, it would still be no higher, in relation to the average wage, than the level it was cut to in 1991. For the single unemployed and invalids, benefits would need to rise by even more."

But is it facile to talk about just the benefit payment when there are other substantial add-ons. Someone who has a baby and is on a benefit now receives $151 a week for that child. If they have other children  they will receive substantial further payments for each child and,  and if they live in Auckland, can claim up to $305 in accommodation supplement.

As for overall income inequality you don't have to understand all the jargon and workings. If you can tell whether a trendline is going up or down you can see that the official stats show that inequality is not rising.




And he hasn't got other facts right.

For instance he says:

"The average age of teachers is 57.5 years."

He is so out of touch and would know this if he spent any time around primary schools.

The following pertains to 2008 but in it inconceivable such a massive change would have occurred since:

"...the average age of teachers has remained relatively steady at 44 for the past eight years; for the current period the average age is 44.5 years."

On his wish-list he writes:

"So what's next? What about Children First? A programmatic approach that says we identify what children need, from conception, make sure they have somewhere to live where they are warm, dry, safe and preferably loved, and wrap the services around them that will allow them to prosper ... through pre-school and school and into tertiary education or work, and especially if they are abused at home, if they have mental health issues, if they get in trouble with the law."

Identifying and targeting is exactly what  Bill English was doing. It is exactly what Whanau Ora services are doing right now.

"There is rage in the world. Rage in this country too. The big task for Jacinda Ardern and her Government is to set us on a path where hope subsumes the rage."

Yes. I get pretty annoyed when I read hyperbole unsupported by facts.

And here comes a cheer leader:

It may be a "good" overview if it confirms lazy prejudices but it is not an honest overview.

UPDATE:

"Years of neglect and our schools are now in crisis" he writes.

Even Chris Hipkins, on telly, has just denied that the education sector is "in crisis".


3 comments:

Kiwiwit said...

Comparing benefits to average wages is misleading because it says nothing about whether beneficiaries are actually better off. This is the same relative poverty argument trotted out ad infinitum by the left. What also needs to be taken into account is that wages in this country have been rising faster than productivity (as Michael Reddell shows here: https://croakingcassandra.com/2018/07/24/consumption-investment-and-wages-inflation-in-new-zealand/). This is a real problem for New Zealand as wages (and welfare benefits, if they are held relative to wages) cannot continue to rise faster than productivity over the longer term.

Mark Wahlberg said...

Lindsay, "Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story" is a quotation widely attributed to Mark twain.

Unlike Simon Wilson, Mark Twain rewards the time spent reading.

Stefan O said...

You can count yourself lucky if you have been able to avoid reading Simon Wilson. The Herald started employing him late last year I think. He had been working at the spinoff, the extraordinarily left-wing website. I suspect the Herald might try and call him a journalist but I don't think he could be called that. He is phenomenally biased and is really a spin doctor for the Labour government employed by the Herald.

Appreciate your effort at balancing up his article with a few facts.

I wish someone would do it for his constant pro-public transport and Phil Goff cheerleading articles that would be more appropriately found on the anti-car blog Greater Auckland.