A System of Inequality
Hello my lovely friends. I come before you humbly, pondering a serious topic. I'm kind of concerned about how NZ now has third world poverty levels while at the same time having a lot of well educated, well paid people. It’s nutty isn't it?
As a person who reads the bible a bit, I believe all of us have great value. In psalms (somewhere in the middle of the bible) it says that God knitted us together while we were in our mothers womb, and that he knew us before we were born. [Ps 139:13-16].
NZ Society
In theory we live in an equal society. I have the same value as you do, you have the same value as John Key who has the same value as a homeless person right? Officially NZ believes in equality. Yet with we live unequal lives. Poverty is rife. Our society is wealthy, our politicians claim to care about the disadvantaged and we pay a lot of tax. Surely this means that we have the resources to eliminate poverty?
Why do we allow it?
I think we strive to be at the top, instead of caring about equality, fairness or the income gap. Maybe it's our eternal striving to be in that rich bracket that makes us apathetic. We think, “if I work really hard, and get qualified and do the right things I will be earning heaps” and we hope to get the benefits of this unequal society.
We want to believe that NZ is equal. That everyone can better themselves if they really want to. Because then we can feel like the world is fair. That NZ is fair. That we deserve our nice house and yummy food. That the poor have only themselves to blame for their problems. Because then we have no responsibility to fix things.
I’ve heard people say that people on government benefits "just don't want to work". Has anyone reading been on a benefit?
Personal Experience
I have. It was the sickness benefit. WINZ gave me $210 a week. Rent was $170, leaving $40 for everything else. It was physically impossible to live on. No matter what budgeting you do, a sick human being cannot survive on $40 a week long term.
Budgeting better would not have allowed me to get groceries, visit my doctor repeatedly (I was in fact sick), get medicine and get petrol.
I survived only because my boyfriend sent me money when I needed it from the States where he was living. That boyfriend is now my husband, he is a keeper! My family also helped where they could with groceries.
If I was on my own I literally would have got sicker and sicker until I was in hospital. On my own I couldn't afford the doctor, medicine or healthy food.
I was never a person who "didn't want to work". But during this time when I was on the lower end of the income gap, I got a real insight into life and the perceptions of people around me.
I can only thank God that I did get better and was able to find work.
The System is Broken
What the hell is wrong with our system? A system causing a temporarily sick person to become a permanently sick person, in the hospital, unable to work long term. Madness!
In NZ the income gap is real. We have enormous social problems and research has shown they link to inequality. Richard Wilkinson, an authority on the subject believes that all issues in society can be traced back to inequality. [check out The Spirit Level]
We need to start taking equality seriously.
Remember God loves us all. You have great value regardless of your finances or employment. If you ever want to discuss any of this fun stuff I would love to hear from you on my facebook page.
KG
PS - I personally recommend CAP [click here] if you want to donate some money to help people who are facing these issues. But money is not the only thing we can do to fix things. Email your politicians. Write on their facebook page letting them know that you care about inequality and the poverty in this country, demand that they start to put their effort into solving this.
Quotes, References & Links:
"New Zealand has some of the highest levels of social problems and one of the higher income gaps in the developed world. Recent research has shown that there is a very strong causative relationship between these two." http://www.closingthegap.org.nz/
"Richard Gerald Wilkinson is a British social epidemiologist, author and advocate. He is Professor Emeritus of Social Epidemiology at the University of Nottingham.........He is best known for his book with Kate Pickett The Spirit Level, first published in 2009, which shows that societies with more equal distribution of incomes have better health, fewer social problems" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_G._Wilkinson
Nomad Podcast with Richard Wilkinson: http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson?language=en
"You made my whole being; you formed me in my mother’s body. I praise you because you made me in an amazing and wonderful way. What you have done is wonderful. I know this very well. You saw my bones being formed as I took shape in my mother’s body. When I was put together there, you saw my body as it was formed. All the days planned for me were written in your bookbefore I was one day old" The Bible - Psalm 139:13 to 16 (New Century Version)
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