Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Child poverty stats conflict

According to UNICEF:
New Zealand's child poverty rates have come down by less than half a per cent since 2008, according to the Unicef report Children of the Recession.
By contrast, Australia reduced its child poverty rate by more than 6 per cent over the same period, and Finland and Norway, countries with similar populations, reduced theirs by more than 4 per cent and 3 per cent respectively.
Here's what the Australian media is writing about the same report:

The third-best improvement was in Australia, where the child poverty rate fell from just over 19% to 13%. In four years, Australia moved from having the 19th-lowest rank to the seventh-lowest rate of child poverty – an impressive achievement in any terms.

Here's what the Australian Council of Social Services say:



4 comments:

JC said...

"Noble cause corruption" will be playing its part in Oz but there's other figures out there (which I probably read here) that shows the countries that have best reduced poverty are also those with horrible debt levels.

Oz Labour may well have improved its child poverty record but in the process its economy went down the tubes.

JC

tranquil said...

Unless I'm very much mistaken the worst "child poverty" tends to occur in single-parent households where the parent is receiving a benefit.

Given that "Sole Parent Support" figures have dropped from 90-odd thousand in 2008 to about 72,000 now, that represents a *huge* drop in "child poverty" both for the present and for the future.

Hopefully the government will move towards abolishing all welfare benefits for those under 20. This would mean people would have to be in either higher education, work or training.

Anonymous said...

Unless I'm very much mistaken the worst "child poverty" tends to occur in single-parent households where the parent is receiving a benefit.


And in two parent houses where the parents are on the bludge. And - crucially - in households where the parents are actually working for the government (i.e. paid by my damn taxes)


Given that "Sole Parent Support" figures have dropped from 90-odd thousand in 2008 to about 72,000 now

72,000 too many!

Hopefully the government will move towards abolishing all welfare benefits

Hell yeah! Best comment on this blog on a long time

for those under 20.

Or perhaps not.

This would mean people would have to be in either higher education,.. or training.

Training I guess being in "lower education". But student "allowances" and student "loans" are just other forms of welfare, which we've just said we'd stop. What does that leave....?

work

precisely. Keine Arbeit Kein Essen. (Marx I believe)

or for you Christians: 2 Thessalonians 3:10.

"this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat."


As Engels put it: "Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat".

Anonymous said...

Or to summarize:

From each according to his ability

In the Soviet Union they just shot bludgers.