Figures on buying power

Press, 22 June 1984, Page 5

Figures on buying power

PA Wellington The purchasing power of real ordinary time gross wage rates fell 3.4 per cent in the year to mid-Febru-ary, according to the Statistics Department. The figure, measured in the Real Prevailing Wages Rates Index, made no allowance for the changing impact of income tax on the purchasing power of salaries and wages, said the Government Statistician, Mr Stephen Kuzmicich. Actual weekly wage rates, measured by the Pre-

vailing Weekly Wage Rates Index, were unchanged in the year, he said. Commenting on the figures, the Labour Party said real wages had fallen 12 per cent since the last time workers received a pay increase. Two members of Parliament, Mrs-Ann Hercus and Mr E. E. Isbey, said that a worker earning $250 a week gross at the end of 1981 was effectively earning only $220 gross in March this year. Wage workers had been deliberately pushed down a “great black hole by the Government,” said Mrs Hercus, the party’s spokesman on consumer affairs, and Mr Isbey, its spokesman on industrial relations.

“The fact that food prices (after seasonal items are excluded) are now rocketing at an annual rate of 12.9 per cent, means an even deeper hole, with take-home pay falling even more rapidly in recent months,” they said.