West Coast Taxable Income Hit $259 Million — But Workers Are Poorer Than 2019
The West Coast's taxable income reached a record $259 million in 2024. Adjust for inflation, and workers on the Coast have actually lost ground over five years — even as Auckland residents worry about <a href='https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/587253/auckland-s-west-coast-residents-fear-their-beaches-will-become-next-rockpool-harvesting-hotspot' target='_blank'>their own west coast pressures</a>.
Key Figures
A West Coast worker earning $45,000 in 2024 has less buying power than someone earning $37,000 did in 2019. That's the real story behind the region's record taxable income figures.
The West Coast's total taxable income hit $258.9 million in 2024, up from $242 million in 2020. On paper, that's a 7% increase. But strip out inflation — which has run at roughly 20-25% since 2019 — and the Coast's workers have actually gone backwards (Source: Stats NZ (LEED), taxable-income-sources).
This isn't unique to the Coast. But it hits harder in a region where the median income sits well below the national average, where jobs cluster in industries like dairy farming and tourism that haven't seen the wage explosions of Wellington's public sector or Auckland's tech scene.
Between 2020 and 2024, the Coast added $16.9 million in nominal taxable income. That sounds like growth. In real terms, accounting for what money actually buys, it's a pay cut spread across an entire region.
The trend sharpened after 2022. From 2022 to 2023, taxable income jumped $6.8 million — the biggest single-year leap in the dataset. Then it flatlined. Between 2023 and 2024, income rose just $537,000. Half a million dollars across thousands of workers. Barely a rounding error.
Meanwhile, inflation kept climbing. Groceries, power bills, rent — all the costs that don't care whether you live in Auckland or Greymouth — continued their march upward. The West Coast's modest income gains couldn't keep pace.
This is what real wage decline looks like in the data. Not dramatic collapses. Just income that creeps up slower than the cost of living, year after year, until one day you're earning more dollars but buying less food.
The Coast isn't alone in this trap. But it's a microcosm of what's happening across regional New Zealand: places where incomes were already stretched, now stretched further. Where the buffer between 'managing' and 'struggling' has disappeared entirely.
The 2024 figure — $258.9 million — will likely set another record in 2025. It always does in nominal terms. But unless wage growth dramatically outpaces inflation, the West Coast's workers will keep getting poorer in the only way that actually matters: what they can afford to buy.
This story was generated by AI from publicly available government data. Verify figures from the original source before citing.