24
30 years of income inequality
Why is high inequality a problem?
The five corrosions of inequality
Health and wellbeing
Social cohesion
Politics
Opportunity
Economics
Effects of inequality
285,000 or 27% of our children live in poverty
Third-world levels of infectious diseases
Long tail of educational underachievement
Increased mental health troubles
Low social mobility
Getting by on $14.80/hourHomecare worker Tamara Baddeley’s budgetMuch worse for those on benefits…
Income Weekly
Pay (after tax) $490
Expenses
Rent $200
Phone $25
Power/gas $25
Car running costs $25
Life insurance $15
Petrol $50
Supermarket shop $75
Milk, bread etc $15
Cellphone $10
Total $440
For everything else $50
Money-empathy gap
High imprisonment rates
Growing ‘us & them’ ethos
So what can we do about it?
But… the national mood is changing
Poverty & the gap between rich and poor now most often named as New Zealand’s
biggest problem
Three quarters of people believe the gap between rich and poor has grown
and that is a bad thing
A kairos moment
Just as the commandment‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality.Such an economy kills. Pope Francis
What can we do together?
Build a community for change
Join forces
Widen the debate
What the government can do
Adopt more socially just policies, focusing on lowest incomes:
Universal child benefit
Invest in good, well-paid jobs
Lift minimum wage
Broad-based fairer tax system
A fairer, broad-based tax system
Financial transactions ‘Robin Hood’ tax
High income tax bracket from $150,000
Capital gains tax
Wealth taxes
What your organisation can do
Host a meeting and invite us to speak to your group about inequality
Encourage your staff, clients or members to vote
Join the Living Wage campaign
Commit to a maximum high to low pay ratio(e.g. Wagemark’s 8:1)
What you can do
Join the conversationfacebook.com/closertogethernz
Get informed closertogether.org.nz
Talk with your networks
Write letters – MPs, newspapers & magazines
Support local initiatives that reduce inequality
Closer Together Toolkit
Video talk by Max Rashbrooke
Posters – for your workplace, church, community
Fold-out flyer summarising the issues
Powerpoint presentation
How to write to MPs, newspapers, magazines
Vote – How to Enrol & Why
Book – The Inequality Debate
