Wage growth historically is higher than inflation! It's why National (or was it Act?) promised to index NZ Super to inflation - because inflation is generally lower than wage growth and Super was already indexed to wages. People vote for it because it sounds good even though it's actually worse.

From what I can find, inflation long term sits a little under 2% with wage growth sitting a little over 2% per year. The last few years are bad measuring sticks though.

[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

I wonder what the distribution of that what growth is over the wave range.

My cynical suspicion is that most of that growth is at the upper end... I.e. the people at the low end, most affected by inflation, don't keep up.

[–] piwakawakas@lemmy.nz 3 points 2 months ago

I suspect you're right. When we bargain (healthcare decay) we get percentage increases. So people on a higher wage get a larger increase than those on a lower.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 2 months ago

I think a good way to test this is to look at minimum wage.

Since 1997, when minimum wage was $7, it has grown to $23.15 in 2024 (sorry, the data I used only went to 2024 and I didn't think to grab the 2025 number).

The "average" here is 4.9% per year. I use "average" in quotes as it's the value needed each year to reach the end number (the Compound Annual Growth Rate), not actually an average. I used this calculator: https://cagrcalculator.net/