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This paper explores poverty income dynamics in the form of income mobility by the poor and poverty persistence, making use of simple diagrams. It seeks to illustrate the extent to which income mobility is pro‐poor and when mobility is associated with persistence below, or movement across, a poverty line over a specified time period. While statistical measures can be used to examine detailed characteristics of income dynamics, two simple diagrams are shown to capture the extent of pro‐poor mobility and poverty persistence respectively in ways that allow convenient comparisons. These are referred to as a ‘three Is of mobility’ curve, and a ‘poverty persistence curve’, The curves are illustrated using anonymised Inland Revenue longitudinal individual income data for New Zealand over 2006–2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the impact off fifteen years of economic and social change on income inequality and poverty in New Zealand. The paper considers how a consensual poverty line was established through the use of a series of focus groups. This leads into a discussion on who was poor in 1998. Problems in measuring trends in the incidence and severity of poverty during a period when economic growth is absent and the income distribution is widening are then analysed. The discussion briefly incorporates current New Zealand debates on benefit dependency, intergenerational transmission of poverty and social exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]