Poverty line?

I think it's set in line with the NZ Consumer Goods index but I could be wrong.

Edited by Bobbie

A couple of years ago the poverty line was defined as a child living in a household with a combined income of less than $20000. I don't know if that's a stagnant value or if it goes up depending on how many children you have.

So basically if you're on a benefit, whether solo or 2-parent family, you're probably classed as living in poverty if you have a child or children.

Don't quote me on that though. Like I said that was probably at least 2 years ago when I read an article on it.

4% Is that a typo??
I would say in any case there would be a lot of very wealthy dodging the tax system as well as the poor on the dole.

Peanut wrote: Babe, would be interested to know where you got the stats from. As a teacher, I would be very sceptical of the fact that 70% of school leavers have little to no grammatical or reading skills - NCEA figures don't support that, IMHO!

I agree ... I'm a speech language therapist - so in the education system too - I work with kids at risk of literacy delays and with poor language skills and that figure seems VERY high IMO...

Because I am on a role - here is the literacy stats for NZ:

New Zealand children rank relatively highly on international literacy scales.

The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment measures performance levels of students near the end of compulsory education in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy.

The data shows that New Zealand children rank seventh among OECD countries, with comparable data in terms of the average score across the three scales, behind Finland, Korea, Japan, Canada, the Netherlands and Australia. New Zealand rates above the OECD average on each of the scales – fifth in reading, ninth in mathematics and seventh in science.

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Edited by Babe

Babe wrote: It wasn't a typo - only 4% of New Zealanders pay tax according to recent releases from the government.

I wonder if they are talking about "full" tax (ie 30%+) because even people on a benefit have PAYE deducted from it before they get it - and certainly more than 4% of NZers are on a benefit.

Hehe, you wouldn't get burned from me...as a teacher I like healthy debate

Umm, I was more referring to your literacy stat as really couldn't see how it fits with what is released by the MOE in regards to the NCEA results which is where most of the literacy figures etc for NZ come from.

I fully agree that alot of NZ children go to school not well fed or clothed - as my DH is a primary teacher in a low decile school.

Also agree with the housing comment although have no real evidence all I know is that NZ is in denial about how cold it gets here and really needs to follow UK, Switzerland etc in their home and heating options as their houses are 10 times warmer than ours in winter.

Education system ones, are the ones that I find debateable also the comment about NZ being 4 years behind - to me there are questions like - behind in what ICT, curriculum, English? I think saying 4 years behind is pretty broad statement with no areas etc.

Also the taxes thing has me baffled as I thought the same as busymum above that all peopl earning money legally have the PAYE deducted which means that technically majority of people are paying taxex to a degree.

Does that clarify things a wee bit more?

Must go and start marking or I will not be an awesome teacher

"huge majority of our children go to school with inadequate clothing and no food" - I woundn't go that far, there are probably quite a few cases but it would not be the huge majority. I def never saw this at school

"close to 70% of children leave school with little to no reading or grammatical skills" - not sure where this is from; here's a link to info of school leavers in 2007

"the fact that only 4% of NZers pay tax" - where do I start on this one LOL. For one, everyone in NZ pays GST so that's 12.5% tax right there. Then as someone pointed out, PAYE is payable even on the lowest income, even if that's from benefit/maternity leave/wages etc. Here's another link - on page 16 is the personal income table

"I also have more of a euro view than a nz view" - well I was born in Europe but still don't get your stats