New Zealand has one of the fastest growing rates of income inequality among the world's richest countries, according to analysis by a leading economic think-tank.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report says the countries with the biggest increases in income gaps are New Zealand, Finland, Israel, Sweden, and America.
The report says policymakers need to be concerned about the bottom 40 percent of the population, and taxes and benefits are the best way to redistribute income.
OECD economist and report co-author Michael Förster said the long-held belief that there was an automatic trickle-down effect of wealth has proven not to be true.
“There needs to be more of a focus on the immediate redistributive effects which is basically taxes and transfers.”