The supporting paper contains this fact:
"Wilson and Soughtton (2009) report that about 18 percent of New Zealand children are born to a parent on a main benefit (about 13 percent are born to a parent on the DPB), down from 25 percent in the 1990s."
Here's my question for you. If you were responsible for the final report, the one for public consumption, would you have considered that statistic important and would you have included it?
(BTW the reason the percentage is down from the 1990s is far fewer people on are an unemployment benefit.)
4 comments:
Your reasoning that far fewer are on the UB is flawed b/c it's a percentage. Also, since many people who don't receive a main benefit (DPB, SB, IB, UB) get supplementary assistance such as DA, AS then perhaps the figures are hiding low income earners who had children when they are basically still beneficiaries IMHO.
I would have put it in the report b/c of the reason above and 18 percent of all children born in our country have a parent on a benefit sounds awfully high, so it looks like a contributing factor.
However I would STRONGLY dispute that children being born to parents on a benefit = poverty.
From my knowledge of entitlements in the system long term benefit dependency, AND high disability related costs set up people for poverty for a number of reasons. Over shorter time period of say, two to three years you have to work hard to be poor.
A benefit means a stable income compared to most jobs, and in addition to this it allows more time to be spent in cost saving measures such as baking, careful bargin hunting etc. To imply that this is "poverty" is grossly inaccurate especially when the state provides so generously.
No, my reasoning isn't flawed. In the 1990s there were many more parents on the unemployment benefit than today.
http://statistical-report-2011.gpub.co.nz/overall+trends+in+the+use+of+financial+assistance/numbers+receiving+assistance#tableot2
So the chance of a child being born onto a benefit is greater and the percentage of all children born onto a benefit rises.
According to the report around 60-65 percent of those children defined as "living in poverty" (270,000) are on a benefit. No, they shouldn't necessarily be poor because of it. By that's where the official definition puts them.
Hence the fact that 18 percent of children each year go straight on to a benefit seems highly relevant.
I read a comment by Psycho Milt the other day that was perhaps the best explanation i have read anywhere on the subject. I hope he doesn't mind me posting it here.
Has it occurred to you that causation might run in the other direction; that poverty causes more relationship breakdowns, which result in solo parents?
To which he replied:
It has, but there’s a better explanation: parents tend to raise children to be much like themselves. Suppose you have a proportion of children whose upbringing involves one parent, siblings they’re only half related to, foetal alcohol syndrome, poverty, neglect, abuse, poor nutrition and low educational achievement, and for whom the only adults they encounter who have a job are hated authority figures – social workers, teachers, cops. Now suppose these children go on to bear or father upwards of half a dozen children themselves with a generation gap of 15 years, while the people paying the taxes to fund the process are producing one or two children with a generation gap of at least 30 years. Is child poverty going to increase over time, or reduce? Take your time…
If anyone thinks that just throwing more and more money at the problem in a vain attempt to fix the problem of child poverty is going to work, then i'm sorry but they are delusional and shouldn't be anywhere near parliament!
It seems the Greens have a strong push for giving poor children more money - the Invercargill candidate defends the practice here.
http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/ending-child-poverty-is-not-dopey.html
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