Low wages explained

The number of strikes are escalating. In most cases the aim is for an hourly rate increase. A few also deal with working conditions.

Insufficient money in a pay packet is, in some cases, an unfair low wage paid by the employer but this is not always the case.

The following are reasons why your pay may not be sufficient through no fault on the part of your employer:

Specialists in the medical, dental, eye problems, legal professions etc charging exorbitant fees for consultations and services rendered.

In the past five years the net difference between people leaving New Zealand and those arriving is close to an average increase of 60,000 people a year. None of those people are sleeping rough. They have contributed to the extraordinary cost increases for residential property.

A succession of governments allowing large numbers of long term stayers to settle in NZ is one of the underlying causes why an unprecedented large part of many pay packets goes to crippling monthly mortgage instalments or inflated weekly rent payments.

Go for it Jacinda.

Allow only absolutely essential people to settle in NZ as long-term stayers.

There are plenty of ‘‘greedies’’ who should be looked at and have controls imposed on them.

Reversing the trend of ‘‘the rich getting richer’’ will make those pay packets stretch a little further. J. Dekker, Hamilton