March 17, 2012 12:09pm by David Farrar

Bad stats

Stats Chat again exposes stories that do not match the data:

Roy Morgan have released their “State of the Nation” report, and the Herald has two stories. In the first

According to the Roy Morgan State of the Nation March 2012 report, there has been an upsurge in the number of New Zealanders who consider Maori culture to be an “essential component” of New Zealand society.

If a change from 52% to 61% is an upsurge, then yes, but the upsurge happened from 2001-2005. Since 2006, the proportion has been flat at over 60%, as is clear from the Herald’s own graph

Go have a look at the graph. How one can write a story saying there has been an upsurge when your own graph shows it has been flat the last six years beats me. But there is more:

The other story says that most of NZ wealth is now held by over-55s.

the 55-plus group has increased its share of net wealth from 43 per cent in 2002 to 52 per cent last year.

that is, by about a quarter

Their share of the population also rose in the same period, but only from 19.5 per cent to 24.7 per cent.

or, about a quarter. Based on these numbers, in 2002, the average net wealth for people over 55 was about 2.2 times higher than the average for everyone over 14, and it’s now about 2.1 times higher.

So the story is a non-story. The elderly are not getting richer – just getting more of them.