We've heard a lot about a cost of living crisis and the squeezed middle, but what does that actually mean? Well, it could mean a family with one earner who is at the average wage for a full-time worker—about $70,000—and another earner who works part-time and earns $30,000. Together, that couple earns $100,000 and they pay $18,290 in income tax, and that's not including GST. If they're renting and they pay the median rent, then their rent's gone up $70 a week, or $3,640 a year, in just the last two years. If they own a home, and they have, say, a half-million-dollar mortgage—which would be nice, my fellow Aucklanders would say—then they'll be paying $12,500 more in mortgage interest than they were two years ago. 