No wonder the mainstream media is driving us nuts.
The National Business Review stated today that "Māori households are getting poorer".
Newshub "helpfully" states the opposite, "Māori economy thriving, growth largely driven by increasing number of Māori women owning own business, new report finds ... The Māori economy is currently worth $70 billion and with it steadily growing at 5 percent per annum, it's expected to reach $100 billion in assets by 2030".
Yesterday the NZ Herald repeated a similar headline, "The Māori economy is booming and will be worth $100 billion by 2030, says Willie Jackson".
For the Herald and the NBR both to be right, then there would have to be sharply increasing inequality within Māori, whereby the average household is going backwards, whereas the prosperity of a small group is rising.
Another scenario is that the NBR is wrong. Its writers think that the following "fact" which they quote implies Māori households are going backwards: "In 2006, the lion’s share of Māori household income came from wages & salaries & the government contributed less than 20% to household income. Fast forward to 2018, and only 47% of Māori household income came from salaries & wages, and government contributions shot up to about 35%".
The implication the NBR draws is that welfare "dependency" amongst Māori has increased.
Could this statistic which they quote be seriously misleading?
Yes, it could well be, for the following reason. The Working-for-Families scheme, which gives income-tax credits to employed folks with children, was introduced in 2005. Working-for-families is a good scheme - it rewards folks who are in jobs by letting them off taxes - and it is not a measure of welfare dependency. Folks who are receiving such contributions from the government are going forwards, not backwards.
Sources: