Jacinda entered politics to end child poverty. One thing she did (which was good) was to ensure we have annual data to monitor it. There are nine different measures of child poverty. Six of them don’t actually measure poverty – they just measure income inequality (so if your income goes up 5% and the median 6%, you are deemed to have gone into poverty which is nonsense). The useful measures are:
- Percentage of children living in households that experience material hardship (primary)
- Percentage of children living in households that experience severe material hardship (secondary)
You can debate whether you compare from the year starting when someone comes into office, or the year afterwards, so let’s do both for the primary measure.
- Jun 17 – Jun 23: 4,500 more children (-0.2% pop share) in material hardship households
- Jun 18 – Jun 23: 9,000 more children (+0.1% pop share) in material hardship households
So basically more children in materially deprived households, and almost no change as a percentage of the population. But how did the evil Key/English Government go? Again let us use both Jun 17 and Jun 18 so there is no cherry picking.
- Jun 13 – Jun 17: 56,200 fewer children (-5.4% pop share) in material hardship households
- Jun 13 – Jun 18: 48,200 fewer children (-4.8% pop share) in material hardship households
Maybe someone should be making a film about John and Bill and the 50,000 kids they lifted out of poverty.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.
5 comments:
Measuring child poverty through household income is flawed as it assumes that any incremental benefits will be passed on to the children through better diet, learning support etc. Often all it translates into is more money for booze and ciggies.
Shut down junk food outlets in low decile suburbs would actually improve overall child health which is what this is about isn't it ? I would add to Barend's list fast foods and illicit drugs. Another advantage to all children would be to have no screens in primary schools . These devices are both expensive and destructive to health and learning of developing brains according to much good research.
By today's standards, almost every "boomer" grew up in poverty after the Great Depression, and WW2.
And yet most developed into excellent citizens on marmite and cheese sandwiches.
Go back to basics, and reset in reality.
Where there's irresponsible parenting there will always be "child poverty".
But that term only waters down the real problem.
Much like referring to those with chronic mental health issues and addictions that drive criminality as "homeless".
Let's call it what it really is - parental neglect and abuse.
Yes the term should be changed to Parental neglect. And stop paying people to have children. Those two things would do the most to prevent children living in hardship. There could be one years notice that the payments would be for two kids only. Some solo parents get more income from us that two working parents earn. It's not right. MC
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