Measures taken by Govt avoid more children falling into poverty

Measures taken by the Government during the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic shock have avoided more children falling into poverty according to official statistics released today.

"Despite the most challenging economic conditions in a generation or more, actions taken by the Government have ensured that New Zealand children have not fallen backwards," Minister for Child Poverty Reduction Jan Tinetti said.

"It's a challenging environment but child poverty figures staying steady this year is encouraging. It shows the Government's policies targeting kids and families are helping, despite the pandemic and tough economic times.

"Programmes like the COVID-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme, the doubling of Winter Energy payments and increases to Working for Families and benefit levels have ensured child poverty rates have continued to track down.

"The extensive package of income and other supports put in place since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a very effective public health response, have helped avoid the big increases in child poverty rates in 2021/22 that some feared and expected.

"We know families are doing it tough right now. But the changes we have implemented over the past five years to support families such as our $5.5 billion Families Package, successive main benefit increases, minimum wage increases, Working for Families increases, and the implementation of our Healthy School Lunches programme are really helping at the moment.

"In spite of the economic challenges we are continuing to move towards our poverty reduction goals. Across the three primary measures, we are closer to both the intermediate and 10-year child poverty targets than reported last year.

"We are starting to see the longer term benefits to the changes we have implemented over the last five years since taking office. Reducing child poverty will take time, but the evidence shows we are moving in the right direction.

"The fact that eight out of nine child poverty measures have seen a statistically significant decrease since 2018 shows the effectiveness of the measures we have put in place to support families over several years. Last year, there were only five measures that had moved a statistically significant amount.

The Stats NZ 2021/22 data shows some statistically significant signs of improvement in poverty rates for some population groups.

There are 15,700 fewer tamariki Māori living in poverty on the after-housing-costs primary poverty measure compared to 2018/19

There are 20,700 fewer children impacted by disability living in poverty on the after-housing costs primary poverty measure compared to 2019/20).

However, as in previous years, disparities continue to be evident for Māori and Pacific children, and children impacted by disability, compared to New Zealand children overall.

"We know that there's more work to do to achieve our target of more than halving child poverty within 10 years – and we're absolutely committed to doing so, "Jan Tinetti said.

"Looking ahead, the Government's biggest priority is to support New Zealanders facing cost-of-living pressures – particularly low-income households and those affected by Cyclone Gabrielle and recent flooding.

"The bread-and-butter package of support announced last week will be critical in helping approximately 1.4 million people with the cost of living. Families are also benefiting from earlier measures including the extension of half-price fares on public transport, fuel tax cuts, and minimum wage increases.

"There is still so much more to do and the Government won't let up on our goals of reducing child poverty," Jan Tinetti said.

(With Inputs from New Zealand Government Press Release)