Friday, June 05, 2015

The evidence that persuaded the govt to raise benefits



Before the budget I seem to remember the PM  referring to 60,000 children in real poverty (haven't time now to chase down source). I wondered what definition he was using. Looks like the table below which measures items of deprivation. So 60,000 children have 11+ deprivations:


Table D.4
Cumulative distribution for higher DEP-17 scores (% individuals), LSS 2008
DEP-17 score
6+
7+
8+
9+
10+
11+
ALL (%)
14
11
8
6
4
3
0-17 yrs (%)
21
17
13
10
8
6
# of children
220k
180k
140k
100k
80k
60k
# of households with children
110k
90k
70k
50k
40k
30k

Here is the table of items .




Table D.5
18 child-specific items used for calibrating DEP-17 for school-aged children (aged 6-17 yrs)
Enforced lack of essentials
Economised, cut back or delayed purchases ‘a lot’ because money was needed for other essentials (not just to be thrifty or to save for a trip or other non-essential)

Two pairs of shoes in a good condition that are suitable for daily activities (for each child)
Child(ren) continued wearing shoes or clothes that were worn out or the wrong size

Two sets of warm winter clothes for each child
Postponed child’s visit to the dentist

A waterproof coat for each child
Postponed child’s visit to the doctor

Fresh fruit and vegetables daily
Did not pick up child’s prescription

A meal with meat, fish or chicken (or vegetarian equivalent) each day
Unable to pay for a child to go on a school trip or other school event

A separate bed for each child
Child(ren) went without music, dance, kapa haka, art, swimming or other special interest lessons

Enough bedrooms so that children aged over 10 of the opposite sex are not sharing a room
Had to limit your child(ren)’s involvement in sport

Have children’s friends around to play and eat from time to time
Made do with very limited space for children to study or play

Have children’s friends to a birthday party


All the school uniform required by the school(s) for each child


This is a much better way of measuring hardship than simply measuring household income.


Then,


Main income source for parents
·         Beneficiary families have higher hardship rates than working families, with those who move between benefit and work having rates somewhere in between.
·         Nevertheless, at the less severe hardship levels (eg 7+) children in hardship are split evenly between beneficiary and working families. This reflects the fact that there are many more working families than beneficiary families.
·         Beneficiary families are more likely than working families to be in more severe hardship, though around a third of children in more severe hardship are from working families (families that have no core benefit income at all).
 


 Response - raise beneficiary income.

This data was from 2008. What will be most interesting is when, or if, the exercise is repeated, will the deprivation have eased. What would you expect?

(Sorry will have to sort the presentation later - but the link to the tables is above)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh this really is pathetic. Yet another Labour/Green wishlist. Since when did not being able to provide "Fresh fruit and vegetables daily" (rather than frozen or tinned, say), "music, dance, kapa haka, art", or "Have children’s friends to a birthday party" count as a deprived childhood? "limited space for children to study" ???

Hell most kids I knew ate nothing but porridge, cheese, and fish fingers and chips, but apparently that's deprivation! No one went to birthday parties after age 5 - more deprivation! No Kapa Haka or Art lessors - deprivation! Sharing a bedroom - deprivation!!

Lindsay Mitchell said...

I agree. But at least it enables us to see what some people's idea of 'hardship/deprivation' is.