Polity: Regional income stats

notices and features
10 years ago
Categories: Economy, employment, spin
Tags: dodgy statistics

There is always a fool who prefers to invent a story rather than trying to understand it. Rob Salmond points out that David Farrar is one of them. Of course as he also implies that it might be simply convenient for a National puppet to cry “good news” at every possible opportunity in view of their stagnant and incompetent jobless mismanagement of the economy.

The Herald says the regions have rising incomes, but caution against reading anything into it. DPF reads everything into it anyway.

First, here’s your New Zealand Herald on the regional income stats out of the census:

The South Island has had bigger median income gains than the North over the past seven years, Census figures show.

But an expert cautions that the figures may point to changing work and migration patterns, rather than real growth in income for the same people.

…

Dr [Eric] Crampton said people on low incomes because of unemployment in rural regions might move to the city to seek work.

“If those unemployed in the regions were more likely to move to the big city while those unemployed in the city were less likely to leave, that, too, could explain some of the difference in regional income growth.”

Yep, the regional migration statistics back that up, too. The regions with the supposedly highest median income growth also had some of the worst records in population growth, while the areas whose populations grew the fastest had relatively little change in median incomes.

AUT sociology professor Charles Crothers said the Census statistics undervalued the economic activity for self-employed people.

…

Statistics NZ said the Census question on income had a high non-response rate, with 9.7 per cent of respondents refusing to say how much they made.

So, the headline figures say one thing, but a parade of experts (including well-known leftie agitator Eric Crampton) say the result is iffy at best and could easily mask the opposite pattern in reality. Let’s seeDPF’s take on the whole thing, under the headline”Didn’t Labour claim the provinces were not sharing in the recovery?”:

So median income down in Auckland and massive growth in Buller, Asburton, Southland and Taranaki. This is what Labour calls the provinces missing out. I never knew they regarded Auckland as a province.

Great job completely ignoring the experts, there! Seriously, how dumb does the right think everybody is?

This is a pattern of behaviour that will bite National next year. They think they can trumpet any old figure as victory, no matter how flimsy the pretence, like the time they claimed victory over unemployment because things were so hopeless that tens of thousands moved to Australia.

New Zealanders are not so silly as they seem to believe.