Fourteen Teen-agers On £2000 A Year

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30678, 18 February 1965, Page 6

Fourteen Teen-agers On £2000 A Year

"The Fri i” Special Service

AUCKLAND, Feb. J ’ Scattered through the country and probably st.i in school uniform, are 14 y mg people who are the “gx ien youth” of New Zealand., They are 10 boys and four girls who were all undetU.s years of age in 1961 yet i ho each had an income of at least £2OOO a year. These young people,' i ys the Government Statistic in (Mr J. V. T. Baker), are tn inexpressibly small perc itage of the population, three years ago they had ncomes at least double th ;e of many mature men. I New Zealand census-jtak's are polite people. They i k exactly how many fowls a person has in his back ya L, even whether he is Church f England or Zoroastrian; 1 t never have they asked pen] to put down just how mu they really earn. That is a matter for t Commissioner of Taxes—a: his lips are sealed. So the Department of Stat tics in its latest publicatio a 48-page analysis of person income, is somewhat vdgi about the 4 per cent Of ti total population who have r income of £2OOO and overIt does say, however, th none of the 14 young peop among them is an employe nor could any of them qualil for full-time employment. None was in business < his or her own account, bi three of the boys are cryp> cally noted as being “on salat or wages.” None was unemployed ax none came under the detigl fully vague heading: “Retire independent means, etc.” Three more of the (boys iu all four girls are under ti beading which lists them « "dependent on public or p vote support.” The remain? four boys make no account! for their source of funds. Nine young men and.-a-g aged between 15 and j earned more than £2OOO year as employers. Ten you

men were equally successful in their own account and 23 young men and 14 girts had such incomes classed as salary or wages. To prove that to be unemployed is no social stigma and even less of an economic handicap, 40 men and four women of ail ages were in this group with incomes of £2OOO a year or more.