Income
New Zealand's early economy was based on sealing, whaling, flax, gold, kauri gum, and native timber. During the 1880s agricultural products became the highest export earner and farming was a major occupation within New Zealand. Farming is still a major employer, with 75 000 people indicating farming as their occupation during the 2006 census, although dairy farming has recently taken over from sheep as the largest sector. The largest occupation recorded during the census was sales assistant with 93,840 people. Most people are on wages or salaries (59.9 percent), with the other sources of income being interest and investments (24.1 percent) and self-employment (16.6 percent).
In 1982 New Zealand had the lowest per-capita income of all the developed nations surveyed by the World Bank. In 2010 the estimated gross domestic product (GDP) at purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita was roughly US$28,250, between the thirty-first and fifty-first highest for all countries. The median personal income in 2006 was $24,400. This was up from $15,600 in 1996, with the largest increases in the $50,000 to $70,000 bracket. The median income for men was $31,500, $12,400 more than women. The highest median personal income were for people identifying with the European or "other" ethnic group, while the lowest was from the Asian ethnic group. The median income for people identifying as Māori was $20,900.
Unemployment peaked above 10 percent in 1991 and 1992, before falling to a record low of 3.4 percent in 2007 (ranking fifth from twenty-seven comparable OECD nations). Unemployment rose back to 7 percent in late 2009 and was 6.8 percent during the June 2010 quarter. The 2006 census reported that while the proportion of people with no source of income was the same as 2001, the number of people receiving the unemployment benefit dropped 48 percent. Most New Zealanders do some form of voluntary work, more women volunteer (92 percent) than males (86 percent). Home ownership has declined since 1991, from 73.8 percent to 66.9 percent in 2006.
Read more about this topic: Demographics Of New Zealand
Famous quotes containing the word income:
“We commonly say that the rich man can speak the truth, can afford honesty, can afford independence of opinion and action;—and that is the theory of nobility. But it is the rich man in a true sense, that is to say, not the man of large income and large expenditure, but solely the man whose outlay is less than his income and is steadily kept so.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Some rough political choices lie ahead. Should affirmative action be retained? Should preference be given to people on the basis of income rather than race? Should the system be—and can it be—scrapped altogether?”
—David K. Shipler (b. 1942)
“Strictly speaking, every citizen above a certain level of income is guilty of some offense.”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)