Penal welfare: What it does and why we should change it

Abstract

Inequality in New Zealand is now greater than it was in the 1920s, prior to the socio-economic upheavals of the 1930s. Since the 1970s our current economic system has increasingly benefitted those who already have wealth at the expense of people of more modest means. In this context, the considerable increase in the number of people living precarious lives (the precariat) is primarily the product of dysfunctional intergroup relations where more affluent groups take too much and leave less affluent people with not enough.¹ The most recent statistics available indicate that wealth inequality is rising in New Zealand. In 2015, the top 20 per cent of New Zealand households held 70 per cent of the national wealth.²