Where’s the outrage about our child poverty figures?
We’re a country that until recently prided itself on its ability to care for its citizens no matter what their circumstances. After all, Aotearoa was the first country to introduce old-age pensions, thanks to Richard Seddon’s 1898 Old-Age Pensions Act.
So why is news of an increasing child poverty disparity between Pākehā and Māori and Pasifika kids, highlighted in this week’s Children’s Commission’s Child Poverty Monitor, has been greeted with little outrage?
While 14% of Pākehā kids were living in poverty, 17.8% of Māori are in poor-income households and 16.3% for Pasifika children.
When it comes to food insecurity, 26.4% of Māori children are likely to run out of food sometimes or often, with a staggering 37.7% of Pasifika children experiencing kai insecurity, compared with 10.9% of Pākehā kids.
If your reaction to those figures is a shrug of the shoulders, or even glazed eyes, think of the wider ramifications. Because, as Children’s Commissioner Judge Frances Eivers says, ‘‘it’ll cost more in the health system, more in the education system and those young ones will, as they grow into adults, be disenfranchised and won’t be able to live their best lives’’.
But it’s not all bad news: poverty figures are slowly falling. By how much? It depends on who you talk to, because the data seems to have become weaponised.
In February, Stats NZ released its child poverty statistics from June 2020 to June 2021. It held the Government to account for the three targets it set in the Child Poverty Reduction Act.
Those targets, set for achievement by June 2021, aimed to reduce child poverty before and after housing costs were considered, and included the numbers of children experiencing material hardship.
The Government squeaked in with two out of the three targets – the percentage of children in poverty after housing costs and those experiencing material hardship. This led to fevered flagwaving by the prime minister – who also happens to be the minister for child poverty reduction. She declared the results delivered one of the most
significant drops in child poverty in decades.
Not so fast, the agencies at the front line cried. Children with disabilities or living with a disabled parent continue to experience the highest rates of material hardship, while Māori and Pasifika children’s relationship with poverty remains unchanged.
Then, two months ago, the
Ministry of Social Development issued its own Child Poverty Report. It took an international long-term view of New Zealand’s figures, revealing that, instead of showing high poverty, Aotearoa’s sat slightly above the median of European countries.
It also revealed that material hardship rates for children had dropped from 25% in 2008 during the GFC to 11% in 2021. (It was 15% when Labour came to power in 2017.)
That’s still 135,000 children who can’t take school trips because Mum and Dad don’t have enough money, let alone kapa haka or taking music lessons.
And while the figures were improving, the majority of those children (57%) had parents who worked. While those with the most severe deprivation had parents who were unemployed, children from oneparent families experienced aboveaverage poverty levels compared with other nations.
Here’s the dilemma with all those figures: in trying to paint an accurate picture of poverty, they miss the point. The numbers don’t tell us the stress and shame these children bear, nor the lack of heat in their homes or the fact they don’t have any shoes to wear.
Those statistics also contradict others which anecdotally show that poverty isn’t improving; it’s getting worse. Ten days after MSD’s report, KidsCan released its own survey which saw a huge increase in demand for its services. The charity, which supports 877 schools and feeds more than 49,000 students a day, was feeding 10,000 more kids each day than at the beginning of the year.
The survey detailed that, even with both parents working, some families faced the heart-breaking choice of paying bills or getting essentials for their children.
It’s easy to blame the Government for not doing enough. For not enacting the recommendations of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group, let alone providing liveable incomes or a universal benefit.
Government’s lack of meaningful change only occurs because of our own disengagement in achieving that change.
In a recent NZ Herald poll of 1000 people, 64% acknowledged that not only were we more divided as a country but 70% said access to housing and distribution of wealth (at 74%) had pushed us further apart.
Having acknowledged the problem, it’s not enough to say someone else can fix it. It requires breaking down suppositions and stereotypes. To cut through class and culture. To care about someone from a different postcode.
Because if we don’t call it out, why should the politicians we elect every three years?