Across New Zealand, a quiet arithmetic has been redistributing wealth without legislation or debate — inflation nudging wages upward in name while tax brackets, anchored in 2010, claim an ever-larger share of income that has not truly grown. An $80,000 salary now crosses a threshold once reserved for the genuinely prosperous, not because its holder has prospered, but because the measuring stick has not moved. This is fiscal drag: a passive policy with active consequences, reshaping the middle class's relationship with the state one bracket at a time.