Points 6 and 7 in our 21-point blog on inequality and poverty here asserted that consumer spending was generally a better indicator of living standards than current income. On Motu research, it is also a better indicator of wellbeing.
On Victoria University professor John Creedy and Treasury’s Christopher Ball’s calculations, household spending inequality per adult equivalent in New Zealand in 2013 was no higher than in 1984. (See Figure 3 in their report.)
Inequality campaigner Max Rashbrooke is dismissive of such points.
First, he observes that lower income households may be running up debt by spending more than their disposable income. Yet the same households could not be doing that for decades and maintain their standard of living. The greater the proportion of income that is needed to service debt, the smaller the proportion available for maintaining living standards. Debt accumulation can’t be both enduring AND unsustainable. The chapter in our
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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