In fact, there are more NZ European children in material hardship than all other ethnicities put together. The table below shows there are 53,000 NZ European compared to a total of 47,000 combined other ethnicities (these are the most recent data reported in June 2021):
Click to view
So poverty doesn’t have a colour. Saying poverty has a colour is a convenience for those who want to blame racism and colonisation.
The next thing of note from the above chart is that Asian children have relatively low rates of material hardship. Is this due to higher incomes? No.
The following chart shows that the percentage of Asian children in the poorest households is on par with Māori at 15%:
Click to view
So low household income does not have a direct relationship with material hardship. How money is budgeted and what it is spent on matters. Asian families are also more likely to derive their income from work. The Ministry of Social Development long ago established that, “Standard of living data show that poor children reliant on government transfers are more likely to be subject to restrictions in key items of consumption than are poor children in families with market income.”
And yet both the head of the Auckland City Mission and convenor for the Child Poverty Action Group call for more government transfers. The former wants anyone raising children to receive in-work tax credits and the latter wants more tax from the “richest ten percent” to fund a universal child benefit (oddly missing that a universal child benefit would go to the children of the richest ten percent.)
The social worker from South Auckland would like to see the recommendations of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group established four years ago implemented. Either he or the writer of the piece claims a review “found that the Government had made no progress on implementing the report’s 42 key objectives.”
That is totally incorrect. For instance, sanctions for not naming the other parent were removed; the ‘subsequent child work obligation’ was abolished: the child support pass-on is implemented; benefits and abatement thresholds were increased; benefits were indexed to wage inflation and accommodation supplements were raised. (This is not an exhaustive list.)
The social worker who wants the recommendations implemented then goes on to argue that “Accommodation supplements hide the fact that rents are too high, so essentially the government is pouring money into private rentals.” High rents are at least partially a result of the government imposing unrealistic housing standards and scrapping tax deductibility, policies he would doubtless approve of.
This disconnect with economic reality characterises suggestions made when those “who see deprivation up close on a daily basis” are asked for their solutions to child poverty. Despite decades of redistributing wealth, the problem persists. Perhaps the prescription is wrong.
If the diagnosis is wrong, it probably is.
If the Chief Executive of the Auckland City Mission stopped for a moment blaming “society” for the poverty of sole parent children and instead reflected on where their fathers are, and why they are absent, a real remedy might reveal itself. Perhaps replacing fathers with the DPB all those years ago wasn’t such a good idea after all?
If the Māori provider chair stopped insisting that child poverty is the “product of colonisation” and reflected on why the children of low-income Asian parents do not suffer disproportionate material deprivation, a real remedy might reveal itself. Perhaps the strong work ethic that typifies immigrants to this country could be celebrated and emulated?
And if indeed the middle-class has become “indifferent to child poverty” perhaps it is because they can see through the many excuses for why it exists.
Lindsay Mitchell is a welfare commentator who blogs HERE. This article was published HERE
Click to view
So poverty doesn’t have a colour. Saying poverty has a colour is a convenience for those who want to blame racism and colonisation.
The next thing of note from the above chart is that Asian children have relatively low rates of material hardship. Is this due to higher incomes? No.
The following chart shows that the percentage of Asian children in the poorest households is on par with Māori at 15%:
Click to view
So low household income does not have a direct relationship with material hardship. How money is budgeted and what it is spent on matters. Asian families are also more likely to derive their income from work. The Ministry of Social Development long ago established that, “Standard of living data show that poor children reliant on government transfers are more likely to be subject to restrictions in key items of consumption than are poor children in families with market income.”
And yet both the head of the Auckland City Mission and convenor for the Child Poverty Action Group call for more government transfers. The former wants anyone raising children to receive in-work tax credits and the latter wants more tax from the “richest ten percent” to fund a universal child benefit (oddly missing that a universal child benefit would go to the children of the richest ten percent.)
The social worker from South Auckland would like to see the recommendations of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group established four years ago implemented. Either he or the writer of the piece claims a review “found that the Government had made no progress on implementing the report’s 42 key objectives.”
That is totally incorrect. For instance, sanctions for not naming the other parent were removed; the ‘subsequent child work obligation’ was abolished: the child support pass-on is implemented; benefits and abatement thresholds were increased; benefits were indexed to wage inflation and accommodation supplements were raised. (This is not an exhaustive list.)
The social worker who wants the recommendations implemented then goes on to argue that “Accommodation supplements hide the fact that rents are too high, so essentially the government is pouring money into private rentals.” High rents are at least partially a result of the government imposing unrealistic housing standards and scrapping tax deductibility, policies he would doubtless approve of.
This disconnect with economic reality characterises suggestions made when those “who see deprivation up close on a daily basis” are asked for their solutions to child poverty. Despite decades of redistributing wealth, the problem persists. Perhaps the prescription is wrong.
If the diagnosis is wrong, it probably is.
If the Chief Executive of the Auckland City Mission stopped for a moment blaming “society” for the poverty of sole parent children and instead reflected on where their fathers are, and why they are absent, a real remedy might reveal itself. Perhaps replacing fathers with the DPB all those years ago wasn’t such a good idea after all?
If the Māori provider chair stopped insisting that child poverty is the “product of colonisation” and reflected on why the children of low-income Asian parents do not suffer disproportionate material deprivation, a real remedy might reveal itself. Perhaps the strong work ethic that typifies immigrants to this country could be celebrated and emulated?
And if indeed the middle-class has become “indifferent to child poverty” perhaps it is because they can see through the many excuses for why it exists.
Lindsay Mitchell is a welfare commentator who blogs HERE. This article was published HERE
6 comments:
Spot-on article that doesn't mince words. Brace yourself for heavy flak, Lindsay!
Why should the middle class who as you say rightly see the reasons care when they are the taxpaying majority to a government that cares even less?
Where has the Minister of Child Poverty been in the last five years who stated that the only reason they got into politics was to fight child poverty........
Of course the answer is obvious.
This is what happens when you assume a vague causal factor (colonisation), which is NOT backed up by the statistics or history, for pretty much every societal problem going. Then you slant it strongly in favour of your pet ethnicity.
Every woke academic, charity, NGO, and their dogs come clamouring to the government for more taxpayers money to "fix" a problem which keeps getting worse, despite doing the same thing over and over again to make it better.
Do these organisations and academics ever sit down and question their assumptions and proposed solutions - NO. Because that would upset the endless gravy-train of funding which goes, God knows where, and achieves nothing.
Weak, left-wing, ethnically biased, woke governments are manna from heaven for these people. Doling out payments and sympathy while blaming everyone who pays to support the "victims".
Only when NZders decide they've had enough of being taken for a very long, expensive ride will we change our broken system.
I suspect that will happen when our economy really tanks and the people funding everything start to suffer financially and wake up. Or maybe not!
Fingers crossed doesn't work DeeM, perhaps a more direct action is need.
Otherwise a spot on article with true and honest facts.
Absolutely spot on
It is little wonder many middle income persons have little sympathy for the young poor with family. Many middle income have studied and worked, made large sacrifices, and delayed families to avoid hardship. They see those who have not rewarded with fancy new state units. With the range of contraceptive and abortion and adoption services available it is hard to have sympathy for those who multiply to penury. I would like to see the detailed budget for many. Am sure I could save on, although concede difficult for working mums with several children. Apart from some of the mono cultures, is there any country where the poor are better provided for? Observing the supermarket trolleys of the less afluent looking Asians and others reveals much.
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