first he didn’t understand what inflation-adjusted meant and said ‘what about the cost of livng going up?’ then he thought he was so clever because he got higher inflation-ajusted figures, of couse he had forgotten to take off tax.

You got “4%” by comparing the gross nominal income with the net real income.

There was an adjustment for tax and an adjustment for inflation. The difference ends up being small because the tax adjustment is negative and the inflation adjustment is positive.

And that therefore this artificially increased the pay of the median worker

We are working with three time series here:

x. median real net income for workers who would have been FT in 1990
y. ditto in 1999
z. ditto in 2007

But we only know one data point from each series: x_1990, y_1999, z_2007.

y_1999 > x_1990, but you can’t really describe it as an “increase” because you’re jumping from one series to another.

Good to see a little open mindedness in your analysis. Tane over at The Standard is trying to tell us that the total effect of inflation between 1991 & 2006 is a gross total of 4%.

It’s not surprising their graph ended up looking just like they wanted it to after such blatant manipulation of the statistical data.

You are correct that unemployment has been decreasing since 1990:

1990: 7.5%
1999: 6.9%
2007: 3.5%

Percentage working part-time over that period [PT/(PT+FT)]:

1990: 24.3%
1999: 32.1%
2007: 29.9%

This means statistics calculated for “full-time workers” over this period are not comparable.

* all figures are for June quarter, from stats.govt.nz table builder

I do now understand where your argument about this is going. You are suggesting that, under National, a lot of people who would otherwise have been lower than the median full-time income moved from full-time work to part-time work. And that therefore this artificially increased the pay of the median worker (remembering that the median worker is a statistical construct, so this isn’t a real person whose income is increasing, more we are selecting a different person at each point).

This may or may not be true. If that is your main argument, then you should be looking for the statistics that show the number of full-time workers decreasing in this period. My recollection is that unemployment decreased under National but I don’t have statistics as to whether this was full time or part time. I believe unemployment increased under the non-traditional Labour govt that came before. And that, in turn, this unemployment increased under that Labour govt largely because the unemployment that was hidden inside state organisations and unprofitable businesses turned into real unemployment with the reforms of the 80s. We can argue whether this was good or bad, but I note that that unemployment is now largely gone, and most of it gone into proper jobs (although some would argue that the substantial growth of the state sector in recent times indicates some level of hidden unemployment).

Labour inherited a very successful economy from the National party (1999 growth of 3%, 1.5Bil surplus, productivity nearly 3 x higher than now and NZ business gaining a new 2Bil in overseas earnings.) I can’t see how anyone (but the totally ideologically blind) can say that this was not a very healthy platform for Labour to work with.

Labour was then incredibly fortunate that our farmers gained the highest commodity prices in a generation which gave the economy, already on the verge of taking off, the final impetus it needed.

But something is not right. Why is it that people living in severe hardship has increased by 27%? Why did Cullen admit just prior to the last election that with the 41 additional taxes they have imposed, the average NZ’er is essentially right back to where they started. This is further reinforced by NZ slipping another notch in the OECD stakes.

Even without looking deeply at DPF’s figures, the idea behind them rings very true. I’ll be very interested to see Rogers figures, although the problem is I know he will only twist and contort them to suit his own ends.

I said before, if what we have today is the best Labour can do after the most superb economic conditions of any generation, then God help us if they are in during hard times.

When you post your figures Roger, you should show people are spectacularly better off under Labour. Anything less is a disgrace given the economy they inherited and the economic conditions they have enjoyed.

DPF actually has an advertising policy:

Kiwiblog is now open for advertising. If you would like to advertise on New Zealand’s most visited blog, please contact David to discuss availability and rates.

There’s a possibility you’ve breached DPF’s advertising policy. But not to worry: I’m sure DPF would gratefully accept gold coin donations for link-whoring to The Standard

Would you concede that the median person in full-time employment was worse off under Labour than under National. And we on the right could perhaps concede that further analysis is necessary to work out whether the median income earner and/or median part-time worker was better off or worse off?

No, because DPF’s numbers don’t show that. The ECA and then the ERA caused changes in the structure of the labour market; therefore the set of “full-time workers” is a different category in each of the years considered.

It does feel to me that we are shifting the ground a fair bit, and each time you are implicitly conceding ground to DPF – “well yes, that particular subset are worse off, but that isn’t everybody yet.”

I had several points of disagreement with DPF’s original post. The mean/median issue was the most glaring, so I focussed on that, but as it turns out it was not the most important.

I recommend you have a look at The Standard where they’ve done a proper analysis of the median income trend.

Anti-capitalists love to scare people with stories of the system somehow failing and people being forced to live without what they currently consider to be necessities. For those of this ideological bent the current favourite scary story surrounds oil. During the week we saw one commentator predict that because of issues such as increasing tension in northern Iraq we might see rationing of oil.

This won’t happen and the reason why is fairly obvious. You ration something when its price does not adjust to create an equilibrium between those who have it and those who want to sell it. You can ration through
measures such as hospital waiting lists for health services for instance. But as anyone reading the newspapers will know the price of oil has been rising strongly recently and hit a record level in US dollars during the week. The market quite clearly is functioning properly and if we see prices continue to rise over the next few years with oil perhaps hitting US$150 dollars a barrel those who can afford to buy it will continue to buy it and its derivative products and continue their driving etc. Those who can’t afford this will hop on the pushbike and alter other aspects of what they do.
The fuel will still be available but not necessarily at the current price. The key here for everybody is how long the period of adjustment towards higher prices is going to be. If prices double overnight then that quite
clearly is a shock and will be disruptive. But if we have a period of many years to get used to the idea of very high energy prices then we can alter our lifestyle slowly – which would seem to be a fairly intelligent
thing to be doing at the moment given the upside potential for energy prices.

Now, Phillip John, who do you think might be responsible for that statement?

Some market participants have compared prospects for New Zealand with that of Adelaide, an Australian city with the population of Auckland that has not one big corporate left. They have all migrated to Sydney or Melbourne.

Is this why Labour’s quietly dropped the “top-half of the OECD” objective?

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4236607a6445.html

I think you’ll find that’s there’s more to life than peak oil.

It could quite possibly be all contained in your name. But you don’t believe in things like non-renewable resource depletion

If NZ is doing so well, can you explain why the Government has decided to have another Great Wave-style conference to discuss why NZ is in the economic doo-doo?

You righties will enjoy reading this.

“A report released today by the Ministry of Social Development showed New Zealand was equal to, or above the OECD median for 12 of the 20 indicators looked at.”

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4242448a10.html

No absolutely not – the chris trotter talk will only take an hour or so I imagine