Last month, Statistics New Zealand released its Household Living Costs Price Indexes, which revealed that low-income households’ costs have been growing at a much faster rate than high-income households:
Today, Statistics New Zealand has released annual national accounts data, which shows that Kiwi households continue to outspend their incomes:
Household net disposable income was up $6.2 billion in the year ended March 2017, to $148.0 billion (a 4.4 percent increase). However, household consumption expenditure was up $8.5 billion from the previous year, to $152.1 billion (a 5.9 percent increase).
Household saving, the balance on household income and consumption expenditure, was negative $4.1 billion, down $2.3 billion from the March 2016 year. Saving for the household sector peaked at $3.0 billion in 2012, and has now been negative for three years in a row.
“Household consumption expenditure increased across all categories in 2017, with large increases in restaurants and hotels, transport, and housing and household utilities,” national accounts senior manager Gary Dunnet said.
On the income side, compensation of employees rose $5.0 billion to reach $114 billion…
This above stories play nicely with the new Labour-led Coalition Government’s inequality agenda.
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
