The very last part of the clip is hilariously funny.
Solutions should reflect the problem definition and analysis: Duncan Garner on child poverty
02 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of religion, labour economics, politics - New Zealand, urban economics, welfare reform Tags: child poverty, Duncan Garner, expressive voting, green rent seeking, land use zoning, regulation of land supply, Resource Management Act
Duncan Garner wrote a passionate column yesterday in the local paper calling for gutsy action on child poverty.
His analysis of the causes of child poverty in New Zealand was good. Garner’s solutions had nothing to do with what he had identified as the causes of child poverty. As Garner himself wrote:
… in order to tackle poverty it’s important to attempt to define what it means today.
Poverty is children living in crowded, damp homes who don’t get three square meals a day.
They may not have their own bed, they won’t see a doctor when they’re sick and many of them will be admitted to hospital with serious poverty-related illnesses such as respiratory problems and skin infections.
They may live in households where paying the rent accounts for 60 per cent of the family’s income every week.
Garner then discussed the plight of one particular family in Auckland:
The parents are nice people, with seven children.
They shared a tiny home with three other adults and another child.
Dad works full-time at a meat factory and they had been waiting 10 months for a state house. They had beds in the dining room and lounge.
They couldn’t afford the cost of a private rental home. One son, aged 11, had a serious lung problem. I saw poverty in action that day and it was deeply disturbing. I highlighted their plight on my radio show and within weeks a shamed Housing NZ had found them a home.
The family Garner discussed is in a tiny house because they lacked the income to rent a better one. They must rely on social housing provided by government with income related rents.
Recurring through his problem definition is the impact that rising housing costs is having on the poor.
Nonetheless, Garner then advocates cash payments to low income families, a tax credit system seen as more generous and inclusive, and a back to school bonus without addressing the supply of housing.
The evidence is overwhelming in New Zealand that the main driver of the increases in the child poverty since the 1980s is rising housing costs.
In the longer run after housing costs child poverty rates in 2013 were close to double what they were in the late 1980s mainly because housing costs in 2013 were much higher relative to income than they were in the late 1980s.
– Bryan Perry, 2014 Household Incomes Report – Key Findings. Ministry of Social Development (July 2014).
Any policy to reduce child poverty must increase the supply of houses by reducing regulatory restrictions on the supply of land.
The Metropolitan Limit confines the expansion of Auckland beyond the existing built-up area. This regulatory constraint explains the exceptionally high housing price-income ratio of Auckland.
The limit imposed on the horizontal expansion of the city in green fields encourages increases in residential prices. As demand for new housing increases, no new land supply can enter the market and stem price rises in response to this increased demand.
If you serious about child poverty, you have to criticise government regulation: the dead hand of the Resource Management Act (RMA) on the poor and the vulnerable.
Progressive Feminism Exposed
02 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, discrimination, gender, human capital, occupational choice, politics - USA Tags: gender wage gap, myths and fallacies
Pop Stars Actually Do Die Too Young – The Atlantic
30 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, health and safety, labour economics, occupational choice Tags: compensating differentials, labour economics, music
The Best Minimum Wage Story Of The Day, Or, Yes, Wage Rises Really Do Kill Jobs
30 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in labour economics, minimum wage, unemployment, unions Tags: living wage, minimum wage
Why the Gender Pay Gap is a Myth
29 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, health and safety, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice Tags: employment discrimination, gender wage gap, labour economics, sex discrimination
Men are far more likely to choose careers that are more dangerous, so they naturally pay more under the principle of compensating differences. Top 10 most dangerous jobs: Fishers, loggers, aircraft pilots, farmers and ranchers, roofers, iron and steel workers, refuse and recyclable material collectors, industrial machinery installation and repair, truck drivers, construction labourers. They are male-dominated jobs.
Men are far more likely to enter higher-paying fields and occupations (by choice). Men are far more likely to take work in uncomfortable, isolated, and undesirable locations that pay more. Men work longer hours than women do. The average fulltime working man works 6 hours per week or 15 percent longer than the average fulltime working woman.
Women tend to work in fields dominated by women because these fields best satisfy women’s’ dual careers as workers and household managers. This can include less stressful work environments (noise, strenuous activity, etc.), more flexible policies regarding time off, and a number of other factors.
Men work longer hours than women do. The average fulltime working man works 6 hours per week or 15 percent longer than the average fulltime working woman. Even within the same career category, men are more likely to pursue high-stress and higher-paid areas of specialisation.
Despite all of the above, unmarried women who’ve never had a child actually earn more than unmarried men. In 2008, single, childless women between ages 22 and 30 were earning more than their male counterparts in most U.S. cities, with incomes that were 8% greater on average.
Women business owners make less than half of what male business owners make, which, since they have no boss, means it’s independent of discrimination. The reason for the disparity is money is the primary motivator for 76% of men versus only 29% of women. Women place a higher premium on shorter work weeks, proximity to home, fulfillment, autonomy, and safety.
Women lean toward jobs with fewer risks, more comfortable conditions, regular hours, more personal fulfillment and greater flexibility. Many women are willing to trade higher pay for other desirable job characteristics.
Men often take on jobs that involve physical labour, outdoor work, overnight shifts and dangerous conditions (which is why men suffer the overwhelming majority of injuries and deaths at the workplace). They choose to put up with unpleasant factors because they can earn more.
An Analysis of Reasons for the Disparity in Wages Between Men and Women for the U.S. Department of Labor in 2009 concluded that:
This study leads to the unambiguous conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action.
Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers.
Coalition Celebrating Equal Pay Case Outcome
29 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economics of regulation, gender, income redistribution, minimum wage, politics - New Zealand, rentseeking Tags: gender wage gap, living wage, minimum wage, pay equity
I wonder who will pay for this? Caregiver wages are funded out of a fixed budget allocated by the government.
A higher wage will change the type of worker that the caregiving sector will seek to recruit, as happened after increases in the teenage went minimum wage.
When the teenage minimum wage went up in New Zealand, employment of 17 and 18-year-olds fell, while the employment of 18 to 19-year-olds increased because the latter were more mature and reliable than the younger contemporaries.
Media release: Pay Equity Challenge Coalition
28 October 2014
Coalition Celebrating Equal Pay Case Outcome
“The Court of Appeal’s decision declining the employers’ appeal in the Kristine Bartlett case is a huge victory for women workers” said Pay Equity Coalition Challenge spokesperson Angela McLeod.
“The Courts’ decision that equal pay may be determined across industries in female-dominated occupations revitalises the Equal Pay Act 1972 and will be a major factor in closing New Zealand’s stubborn 14 percent gender pay gap”.
The judgement by the Court of Appeal upholding the Employment Court decision again validates the work of caregivers and that they are underpaid, she said.
“We commend the Service and Food Workers Union Nga Ringa Tota in taking this case and exposing the underpayment and undervaluation of aged care workers. And the decision is a victory for all the women’s organisations who have never given up fighting for equal pay,”…
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Not too long ago, the left promoted the pointlessness of minimum wage – Whale Oil Beef Hooked
29 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economics of regulation, labour economics, Marxist economics, minimum wage Tags: minimum wage
Pop stars should get hazard pay
29 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in health and safety, labour supply, occupational choice Tags: compensating differentials, hazard pay
The 27 club is a myth, but rock stars do die younger on.wsj.com/1teyte8 http://t.co/XvoLy56KNr—
Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) October 28, 2014
The Character Factory – NYTimes.com
28 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in human capital, labour economics, liberalism, occupational choice Tags: labour economics, Personality traits
Trends in union membership in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and the USA
27 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in labour economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, unions Tags: Employment Contracts Act, union membership
The Encyclopaedia of New Zealand says that the rate of union membership dropped sharply to under 20% when the Employment Contracts Act was passed in 1991 using the chart below.
Figure 1: Percentage of union members
The OECD union density data, which allows international comparisons back to 1970, tells a different story. OECD data on union membership in New Zealand started in 1970.
Figure 2: Union density,New Zealand, Australia, the UK and USA 1970-2013
Source: OECD Stats Extract
Note: Trade union density corresponds to the ratio of wage and salary earners that are trade union members, divided by the total number of wage and salary earners (OECD Labour Force Statistics).
Figure 2 above shows that union membership has been in a long slow decline in New Zealand since the mid-1970s. This is been pretty much the pattern all round the world.
The much hated Employment Contracts Act 1991, much hated by the Left over Left, doesn’t really show up in the union density figures in figure 2. There is no sudden break in trend obvious in figure 2.
The longer time series in union membership in figure 1 compiled by the Encyclopaedia of New Zealand has long gaps between the data observations. Because of this, the sharp decline in union membership from the late 1970s, which it actually show up in its start-up , is not sufficiently distinguished from subsequent events because of the long gaps between observations reported in the figure 1.
If anything, union membership stopped declining in New Zealand in the late 1990s. Stabilising at about 20% of wage and salary earners.
Union membership continued to decline slowly in Australia, the UK and the USA subsequent to 1998. Union membership stabilised in New Zealand by contrast. Perhaps the Employment Contracts act should be able to claim credit for that?
How to cut prison numbers | vox
26 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economics of crime, labour economics, occupational choice Tags: economics of crime, three strikes laws
The idea of selective incapacitation is to make a distinction between offenders with a high and a low propensity to commit crime.
Figure 1. Average rate of theft from car and domestic burglary – pre and post-introduction of the Dutch habitual offender law
Note: Plotted coefficients show the average crime rate relative to the month preceding introduction of the habitual offender law. The bars show the 95% confidence intervals. Based on monthly data for 31 cities during 1998-2007.
A habitual offender law adopted in the Netherlands in 2001 (Vollaard 2012). Only offenders with ten or more offenses on their criminal record faced enhanced prison-terms.
Between 2001 and 2007, 1,400 mostly non-violent, relatively old and invariably drug-addicted offenders were sentenced under the law. They accounted for 5% of the prison population. The law implied sentence enhancements of some 1,000%, typically a two-year rather than a two-month sentence for the affected offender population.
These sentence enhancements resulted in a 25% drop in acquisitive crime – the crimes that the affected offenders committed. The law did not have an impact on violent and sexual crimes, offenses that were rarely committed by the affected offenders.
Making the length of prison sentences more dependent on prior criminal records is a cost-effective crime policy. The Dutch policy affected only 5% of the prison population, but reduced property crime rates by 25% to 40%.
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