The campaign has also won the backing of the First Union, which supports low paid workers in retail, logistics and other sectors.

General secretary Robert Reid said New Zealanders were becoming more aware that growing inequality and poverty existed only because they continue to tolerate it.

He said it was "completely impossible" for a family to live on two full-time minimum wage incomes, let alone a single minimum wage if a parent was looking after children.

"Retail workers in our union regularly report that they want more hours, because the hours they currently have do not provide enough income to live on," Mr Reid said.

The Government did not care about ending poverty and had introduced only a small minimum wage increase while also rasing GST.

"Meanwhile our nation's richest were given massive tax handouts which the rest of us are funding through Government borrowing," Mr Reid said.

"It is time then for the community to step up and take this issue into their own hands, to create a movement to end poverty wages."

Read the full story here, and FIRST Union's media release here.  NZ Newswire has a story here too.