I thought this sounded a bit funny when I read it this morning,
"A 2008 OECD study said only 2 percent of New Zealand's people aged 65 and over were officially below the poverty line in the 30 OECD countries.
This tied New Zealand with the Netherlands and the Czech Republic at the top of the ladder."
Some people don't agree!
"But analyst Charles Waldegrave said the fact the study defined poverty as being anyone whose disposable income was less than 50 percent of median disposable income made life for New Zealand pensioners look better than it was.
He said that if the official New Zealand poverty threshold of 60 percent was used, New Zealand would be last of the 30 countries."
"Some organisations working with older people said the OECD study findings were misleading. Age Concern chief executive Ann Martin said: "They just don't match what older people are telling us. Common sense tells us you can't live on $12,500 - $16,000 per person [after tax] annually, but that's what most superannuitants have to do."
The facts are that maori earn less in their working life than non-maori, a higher percentage have jobs involving physical activity which wears you out and can cause more medical and health problems later in life. Maori work longer into retirement, they do more extra activity after retirement, unpaid, around their marae and to top it all off - Maori have a shorter life expectancy than non-maori.
It would be interesting (and very disturbing) to see just the maori statistics - I wonder what percentage of Maori live above the poverty line at retirement?
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