“It’s simply not OK that half of kiwi kids living in poverty are from working families.”

Since Flick began we’ve paid our team, as a minimum, the Living Wage. We’re pretty vocal about our mission to help all New Zealand households to prosper, and paying the Living Wage is us putting our money where our mouth is, so to speak.

We could spend a lot of time debating economic theory and the the possible outcomes of the policy for New Zealand (try a Google search on the topic and you’ll end up down a deep rabbit hole!). But from our point-of-view, paying our team so they can live with dignity is, simply, the right way to do business.

This from Kayla O’Brian on Facebook sums it up: “If a job is worth being done, it’s worth being paid enough to live.”

We don’t think it is right that families in work should also be families in poverty. A long-term study by the Ministry of Social Development suggests that even with government assistance, an estimated one third to one half of children living in hardship are from working families. As an employer we need to help raise wages to a level where this isn’t the reality.

We believe that if we want a prosperous New Zealand and an end to child poverty then all of us must do our part. Paying the Living Wage, and enabling households to pay less for the electricity they need to live well, are our contribution.

We challenge all businesses to think about their responsibilities to their team, the community they operate in, and New Zealand.