This graph shows that the proportion of wages and salaries in domestic income rose fairly steadily from the Second World War until the early 1980s. The only marked exception was in the early 1950s when the Korean War wool boom gave farmers (who were owners of land and capital) a boost in returns. Through the 1980s and 1990s wage- and salary-earners did relatively poorly. There was a profit recovery, a squeeze on public-sector wages, and unemployment rose before a recovery in the 2000s. There were two official series using slightly different national accounting concepts.

Source: New Zealand national accounts