The minimum wage under National

National has just announced the minimum wage will go from $15.25 to $15.75 on 1st of April. Many on the left will say this is miserly and National is a neoliberal oppressive poor hating Government.

So I thought I would point out how the minimum wage has moved from 1 April 2008 to 1 April 2017.

• Hourly rate – from $12.00 to $15.75 – a 31.3% increase
• Gross Annual FT minimum wage – from $25,029 to $32,850 – an increase of $7,821 or 31.3%
• Net (after tax/ACC) Annual FT minimum wage – from $19,798 to 27,684 – an increase of $7,886 or 39.8%
• CPI (inflation) gone from 1044 to 1218 (estimate) – an increase of just 16.7% (includes GST increase)
• Real Net Annual FT minimum wage – from $23,097 to $27,684 – an increase of $4,587 or 19.9%

So a FT worker on the minimum wage has 20% higher spending power than nine years ago. That awful oppressive poor hating National Government.