So reading the paper and listening to the radio today I was struck by two stories at odds with each other.

Firstly there were yesterday’s unemployment figures which at 3.9 percent are the best we’ve seen in a decade and up there with the lowest levels in the world. Everyone’s got a job. There are jobs and no people. The ANZ economist says it’s not actually sustainable and she also pondered why wages aren’t on the up since workers are so scarce.

That is a good question. Let’s all ask our bosses for a wage rise this Friday and see what happens. Imagine that. If the whole nation went out on strike on Friday saying we’re sick of being a low wage economy. Just do it.

Of course, that’s ridiculous because as today’s Reserve Bank statement on the economy says inflation is at a standstill except of course for houses and petrol. So the money ain’t flowing but that’s another issue.

But the upshot of the economic figures of late is that New Zealand is tracking well and even as Mike Hosking noted this morning the new government has not wrecked the gravy train as yet.

But a few pages later there’s the Housing Minister releasing figures that show this winter’s homelessness was the worst in years.  In fact the last 3 years in a row have had very high level of homelessness. Then there are the city missions around the country bracing themselves for an enormous run on their help this summer.

It confuses many. How can we have jobs and opportunities for Africa and yet a stubbornly poor underclass in this country living in garages and killing themselves slowly eating bad cheap food?

It’s because we’ve forgotten the concept that 18 months ago people were saying would be the primary issue in the election.  And that concept is inequality.  The left, in particular, went into the election saying that the rich were getting richer and the poor getting poorer and we need to do something. These two stories today suggest to me that nothing has changed.

And then I thought about all our debates recently.  It’s all about house ownership and tertiary education and trams and stadiums. Such first world problems.  This has been a year of middle-class welfare. Children of the well to do getting uni education for free and a hand up into houses and comfy superannuitants getting heaters.

There’s a reason the poor are staying poor in this country and that’s because they’re born poor and no-one has figured out how to break that cycle. And it starts at the very beginning

This week a global report says New Zealand has one of the most unequal education systems in the world. We’re 33rd out of 38 countries in terms of educational equality.  

By the way, New Zealand is also the worst in the world for bullying at school.

The report looks at the gaps between the highest and lowest-performing pupils in OECD countries, by measuring the difference between those in the bottom 10 percent and top 10 percent. Our best is great and our worst is terrible.  In fact, it says that 90 percent of us are just fine. Life’s not easy but it isn’t impossible.  But right at the bottom, there’s a load of people being left behind completely.

I wonder why we haven’t heard the word inequality in this year of the coalition. I think I know. There are votes in liberal middle-class people. But I’m still waiting to hear how this so-called lefty government is truly going to help the people who really need the help.