Marsden is Here

>The article makes it clear that $15 is low only when compared to formerly high wages, she's talking about taking a massive pay cut for some reason.

No, I don't believe it does. In the second paragraph Kerre clearly establishes the context of unexpectedly tight finances for the rest of the article, but the first paragraph makes it equally clear that 'when [she was] on $15 an hour' she 'was in a low-wage job'.

She gives no context to the pay cut, so I'm not prepared to assume that it was during this or any other recession, or that whatever debts/cost of living she faced had been taken on unwisely.

With with equally little context to the amount of hours I've simply gone with a 40 hour week to scale up the rate to an annual income (BTW, 40 hours at current min wage is only $500 before tax), because actually the number of hours is irrelevant to the issue, which is a skewed perception of how much 'the little people' actually earn. (A problem more endemic to our governing class than our media commentators, admittedly).

I would love for $15/hour to be a genuinely low pay rate in New Zealand (preferably without cost of living increasing to the point where it's also genuinely 'how the hell does anyone live on that little money?!'

But I don't believe we're anywhere near that point.