Child poverty: More families going without household essentials
The latest Child Poverty statistics show more families are going without household essentials due to the rise in the cost of living.
Stats NZ released its annual data on child poverty for the year ended June 2023.
The data is based on nine measures set out in the Child Poverty Reduction Act 2018. It is gathered through a mixture of interviews with households and data.
Two of the three primary measures of child poverty had increased on the previous year.
One in six children (or 17.5 percent) lived in households with less than half of the median household disposable income after household costs – that was up 3 percentage points on last year.
FFS! Of course Child Poverty is going up!
TDB pointed this out last year when the Labour Government tried to bullshit us with the numbers!
Families living in motels and other emergency accommodation, as well as cars and other forms of homelessness were not included
So the most vulnerable families were conveniently left out to make the numbers look better, while the new numbers look even more grim!
Why can’t we fix child poverty in NZ?
Because we are a country built upon neoliberal myths, one of them is that people ‘choose’ to be poor and that if we make the process of gaining welfare easy, then they will breed and bring down the State!
Welfare in NZ is designed to give you less than the nutritional needs so that beneficiaries are always hungry because Kiwis believe a hungry beneficiary will be inspired to find work.
Last week a MSD boss lied to Politician’s faces by claiming sanctions didn’t apply if the beneficiary doesn’t turn up to one of their bullshit work-sets-you-free conferences…
Top MSD official misleads politicians over benefit sanctions
The Green Party is calling on officials at the Ministry of Social Development to be upfront with the public about when they are choosing to punish low-income New Zealanders.
At the Ministry of Social Development’s annual review at Parliament this week, MSD’s deputy chief executive Viv Rickard repeatedly denied that beneficiaries were having their benefits cut for not attending work expos and training seminars.
Work expos were where beneficiaries could meet with multiple local employers and discuss work opportunities in the region.
When asked by the Greens’ social development spokesperson Ricardo Menéndez March why beneficiaries were being punished for not attending the events, Rickard pushed back.
“They do not get punished, that’s unfair — they do not get sanctions. They do not get sanctioned, they do not get sanctions for not coming to our seminars.” Rickard told politicians in the select committee.
Rickard said if a beneficiary repeatedly missed work expos, they could eventually be required to attend “but at the moment, these are invites”.
“We should be excited about these things, because it’s a choice for them to come, the people who come want to be there.”
However, the ministry does regularly sanction beneficiaries — by cutting their benefits — for not attending work expos; effectively forcing them to attend.
…this fuck, this Wellington scumbag fuck lied to the faces of the politicians because Welfare is turning from hand up to punch down.
One of Jacinda’s legacies was kindness, we mocked that at the time, but it forced State agencies to stop being fuckwits.
With Jacinda gone, the State is there now to beat the fucking bejesus out of those the redneck right wing voters despise.
This isn’t social policy, it’s a right wing revenge fantasy!
The MSD scumbag lied because all Welfare is about to become now is a stick to be beaten with, and we will get what we had under the Key Government which was poor people running away from the State so that they couldn’t get caught up in the nightmare of jumping through hoops for WINZ.
The State use antiquated ‘relationship’ rules to trip beneficiaries up and call it ‘benefit fraud’, this has seen a debt of $3.5billion!
According to government figures, about 560,000 low-income earners, mostly beneficiaries, owe about $3.5 billion of combined debt to MSD, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), and Inland Revenue (IR).
More than 70% of that burden rests on households where there are children, too. Māori and Pacific people are over-represented as well.
MSD sees that debt as a fucking asset!
We are loaning people in poverty money for basics they can never pay back and then we wonder why poverty expands.
It’s generating an underclass too fearful of using any public service for fear of getting pinged by the State.
As National get ready to purge tens of thousands from welfare at the same time as purging state tenants…
according to National’s pre-election plans, other sanctions can include benefit reductions or benefit suspensions. Asked how people who have their benefits cut would pay to survive, the minister said there would be a “range of options”.
“If they are not fulfilling their obligations, then it is quite clear about the fact that the welfare system will not support them beyond that point,” Upston said.
When pushed on the question, she responded: “They might go with family, they might go with friends, there might be others that look after them.”
…how disconnected is this clown of a woman?
Beneficiaries she is going to cut welfare will, according to Louise Upston, “go with family, they might go with friends, there might be others that look after them.”
What others?
That’s you, you dumb muppet!
YOU are the others who are supposed to look after people on welfare!
NO ONE ELSE!
That’s your job as the State!
Because we point blank refuse to tax the rich to pay for our social infrastructure, we are in a doom loop of poverty and free market rampage.
Because we point blank refuse to tax the rich to pay for our social infrastructure, we have the housing crisis.
Because we point blank refuse to tax the rich to pay for our social infrastructure, we can’t fund the public eduction and public health services which are the silver bullet to poverty.
We need new ideas, and we need them now.
Concerns are growing New Zealand’s ageing population and low fertility rates could cause major economic headaches in the years ahead.
New Zealand has an ageing population, declining fertility rates and population growth that is only propped up by immigration.
It’s not just New Zealand where there are concerns there aren’t enough babies being born to replace the existing population. A study released last year showed by the end of the century, the United Nations predicts 23 countries will see their populations halved.
It has governments around the world scrambling to engineer a baby boom. Hungary implemented a policy in 2019 that if people had four or more babies, they would pay no income tax for life.
Just last year, National Party leader Christopher Luxon joked Kiwis, if they wish, should “go out there and have more babies”.
While he was joking, he may have a point.
At the centre of the Gender Pay Gap is the biological reality women carry the babies. If we as a liberal progressive society want to ensure everyone has equal agency, then surely recognising biological reality is a starting point?
Woke Feminists refuse to accept biology is a determinant because they see being chained to any biological reality sets their movement back, so the focus is on you-go-girl-feminism-boss-babes-in-the-Boardroom (hashtag) because middle class educated women deserve more while making it an altruistic virtue signal!
By constantly pushing for bigger bonuses at the Boardroom level, this brand of gender equality is weighted towards those women who already have more but want what the boys get too.
Charming.
Women are struggling to remain in top jobs in some of New Zealand’s biggest companies and those firms are battling to retain them due to motherhood, a new studyreleased on Thursday shows.
The study called for businesses to achieve gender balance at senior levels by developing a better understanding of motherhood.
Instead of the ideology why not focus us on the biology?
The first 12months should be maternity leave – or paternity leave, either one, but one of the parents should be paid to stay home with the infant for its first year of life. Who else do you want to look after an infant other than the parent?
Meanwhile, ECE should be nationalised and made completely free for 2 year olds to 5 year olds while all after school care should be free.
Childcare costs fall unevenly and unfairly on women, so why not eliminate those costs altogether?
Playing the Gender Pay Gap Game even when implemented, doesn’t lead to the outcomes desired.
If women having babies is stunting their pay careers, then subside the cost of having that kid with 12months maternity/paternity leave, Nationalise ECE and free after school care.
Also implement a 4 day working week for all state employees so that people’s quality of life is lifted rather than just wage growth.
The promise of Democracy is you can look in your kids face and know they will have a netter deal of it than you.
Allowing a parent to stay home with their kid for a year, provide free early education care and free after school care would do more to live up to that promise than anything else.
All we need to do to fund this type of universal upgrade of the social infrastructure is tax the rich!
Nationals 3 biggest donors (Hart, Mowbray and Bolton) have a combined net worth of 15 billion!
The Bottom 50% of NZ has 23 billion.
The top 5% of NZers own roughly 50% of NZs wealth, while the bottom 50% of NZers own a miserable 5%!
IRD proved NZ Capitalism is rigged for the rich and Bernard Hickey calculates that if we had a basic capital gains tax in place over the last decade, we would have earned $200billion in tax revenue.
$200billion would have ensured our public infrastructure wouldn’t be in such an underfunded ruin right now!
You want to lift our population?
Dump the woke feminist hate for biology, dump the punitive punishment of the right and push for Universal Left instead!
Subsidise the cost of raising the kids so parents can have the agency of re-entering the workforce without the enormous cost of day care!
Reset the Working For Families rules, dump the relationship rules and write off beneficiary debt alongside a 50 000 state home build plan that boosts the state housing stock to a level that robs the landlords of the desperation they use to manipulate rents!
600 000 needing food banks each month is a political choice.
$3.5b in beneficiary debt is a political choice.
25 000 on the state housing wait list is a political choice.
Hundreds of thousands of NZ children in poverty is a political choice.
Remember this Government are taking $2300 away from the disabled each year and pushing 13000 kids into poverty so they can fund a tax cut for their rich landlord mates!
This is all a political calculation and every Kiwi should be ashamed of it.
Fuck you and your bullshit shock at child poverty numbers going up!
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We could have every working aged person employed in NZ and there would stll be the same child poverty .If the working parents are earning 1000 gross a week and paying 700 rent and tax thats 1 income gone then there is food and all other house hold expenses .And yes poor people on low incomes have the same basic expenses as a rich prick in botany with 7 fucking houses does .You know ,housing,food ,transport ,school ,medical,and the list goes on .
FIX POVERTY AND NZ WILL BOOM .
FIX POVERTY AND NZ WILL BOOM
Exactery
Nationalised ECE centres can use the BOT model that our schools currently use, that way they can slot right into the education system.
Housing. Housing. Housing.
Or as a self-styled investor since 1974 once put it in a rejoinder to Bernard Hickey, “Land, land, land is the only long term holding. It is not subject to fashion, styles and renovation.” Such is the favourable lending, tax, etc framework that neoliberalism has created.
“Child poverty” makes about as much sense as reverse psychology. I don’t know of too many kids who are poor when their parents are well off. Why don’t we just call it what it is, fucking poverty.
It’s the gap that gets the crowbar in, like for most international charities. I favoured Oxfam for the lack of religiosity and not emphasizing children — both bogus in my mind. But ‘children’ was vital in the Jacinda years when for a brief minute the elite said they’d do something.
Still in admiration for the Left’s great ‘Living Wage’ move.
While contraception obviously played a major role in limiting family sizes it was also possible for a working family to live on 1 income, purchase a house & thrive in life even with multiple children 60 years ago. Once the landlord class decided that getting others to pay for their extra houses that home-buying ability has continually reduced to higher income levels & those with access to parental support leading to the situation we are in today. I see that Stuff is still trying to inflate the bubble with their garbage reporting on Vinny Holloway & the mantra of increasing house prices which is probably a sign that the system is broken.
” We are loaning people in poverty money for basics they can never pay back and then we wonder why poverty expands.”
And the middle class and working poor are being loaned money by the billionaire banks and finance companies at high interest rates meaning they will pay double the original loan balance just to bridge the gap because their pay can’t keep pace with the demands of ferocious unregulated capitalism. And have no donors or political representation to stand up for their interests.
” Beneficiaries she is going to cut welfare will, according to Louise Upston, “go with family, they might go with friends, there might be others that look after them ”
That’s just what I expected her to say when the question regarding sanctions was put to her.
The damage being inflicted is mostly unseen apart from the odd headline written as ” public interest stories ” that disappear the next day with no follow up or investigation.
I hold not just this bunch of entitled politicians accountable but also the 25% managerial class representative party that had a MMP majority for three years that included its wellbeing budgets that never addressed the structural reforms needed to turn these poverty related disasters around.
” There are Kiwis also taking on second jobs in order to keep up with mortgage increases.”
” While some are also putting off starting a family as they can’t afford to lose a full income while gaining the costs that come with children.”
” Many spoke of the enormous stress high-interest rates are causing on their everyday life and the impact it’s having on mental and physical health ”
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2024/02/cost-of-living-crisis-high-interest-rates-forcing-kiwi-homeowners-to-sell-up-take-second-job-or-move-to-australia.html
” The failure to deliver or deliver quickly is just one of Labours current woes ”
https://www.thepress.co.nz/politics/350191066/was-labours-worst-week-yet
Bravo Martyn for calling out yet another BS article about “barriers” to women in the corporate world, gender pay gaps etc. There’s a barrier alright, and it’s called “biology” – something that feminists hate. Nobody can have it all.
If the government could run a programme to convince people not to breed until they can afford to support their children would be a good start .Then invest in education to open the door to better paying jobs. The richer people are the fewer kids they have which is why they stay wealthy.
RIGHT on Trev!
I didn’t get where I am today rooting my way to having the missus claiming the DPB. It was through good hard effort. I am the self made man, AND don’t I know it
Only the wealthy should have kids – they are the deserving. We didn’t get where we are today eh?
In fact, while we’re about it, we should probably use phrenology to determine whether or not some little 14 year old skank should be allowed to breed. I don’t want my taxes going to the undeserving.
And if they do get though the deserving and undeserving filters, we could put ’em in the army for cannon fodder – their horrid dirty little offspring too. It’d be win win – in this space, going forward.
Oh, AND when people do give birth, they’ll need to prove they rooted using the missionary position, and that the root took no longer than 10 minutes. Time is money
(/sarc)
Every time I hear ‘In this space’ I rewatch this gem https://youtu.be/-LgswD4QveU?feature=shared
“Great CJ, “super”
“The richer people are the fewer kids they have which is why they stay wealthy”.
The poorer people are the more kids they need in their old age!
And once they are educated and have a better paying job who is going to do the job they used to do? Or you could pay everyone the same and everyone would be rich 🙂
Yes Trev but where would all the low and under paid workers come from to work for the top 10%.
Kids are really really expensive and exhausting. you can’t just have 4 or 5 kids and expect to manage day to day bills.
Thought experiment for a baby boom. Woman gets to choose.
Option 1. Girlboss Working Mum. Have children, one-year maternity leave, keep working with free childcare.
Option 2. Solo-Mum. Have children on the DPB. No named father.
Option 3. Trad Mum. Have children, women stays home for 10 years while the father works and gets subsidised to receive 2 x his normal wage for 10 years.
Option 4. UBI Mum. Have children, both parents get a UBI, one stay-at-home parent, father or mother can work.
What percentage of women would choose each option?