Thursday, August 13, 2015

Greens court their 'child poverty' constituency


Green MP Jan Logie said in Parliament today that "...there are now an additional 45,000 NZ children  living in poverty." Having watched the exchange I can say she was smug.

She says the source for this claim is the latest Household Economic Survey. Here is the relevant table:

How many poor children are there in New Zealand?
(ie  How many children live in households with incomes below selected thresholds?)

Table F.5
Numbers of poor children in New Zealand
(ie  the number of children in households with incomes below the selected thresholds)

BHC
AHC

BHC ‘moving line’
AHC ‘moving line’
AHC ‘anchored line (2007)’ 
HES year
50%
60%
40%
50%
60%
60% (07 ref)
2001
120,000
250,000
115,000
215,000
310,000
380,000
2004
150,000
265,000
115,000
200,000
285,000
320,000
2007
135,000
210,000
115,000
175,000
240,000
240,000
2009
125,000
230,000
140,000
210,000
280,000
255,000
2010
150,000
250,000
120,000
210,000
315,000
275,000
2011
145,000
235,000
130,000
210,000
290,000
270,000
2012
130,000
225,000
135,000
215,000
285,000
255,000
2013
120,000
215,000
135,000
205,000
260,000
235,000
2014
-
250,000
-
220,000
305,000
245,000



Logie found the best figure she could. It  features in the After Housing Costs 'moving line' 60% threshold. Any other number from the table would have been smaller.

So let's look at what the 'moving line' represents:

‘moving line’:        

o    this is the fully relative line that moves when the median moves (eg if median rises, the poverty line rises and reported poverty rates increase even if low incomes stay the same)


Now, let's look at what has happened to the median:


  • median household income has risen at 3% pa above inflation in the post-GFC recovery phase
From HES 2013 to HES 2014 median household income rose 5% in real terms (5% above the CPI inflation rate). This is a large change compared with changes in incomes nearby – P40 was up 3% and P60 and P70 only 1% – and its size is likely to be a year on year statistical blip. While caution is needed about the precise size of the changes year on year, there is clear evidence of a steady rise in median household income in the post-GFC recovery, of the order of 3% pa in real terms.

Combine this with:


On the AHC moving line measures, child poverty rates in HES 2014 are around the same as their peak after the GFC. A good amount of the rise from HES 2013 to HES 2014 is due to the large rise in the BHC median, as noted above, rather than a change in the numbers in low income per se.

Oh Greens. Why are you so desperate to talk up child poverty? 

Here's another "key finding" which would be politically un-useful to the Greens.

In HES 2014, the child poverty rate using the AHC anchored line measure was 3 percentage points lower than the peak rate immediately after the GFC (26% down to 23%), and 8 percentage points down on 2004 (31% down to 23%).  This does not mean that New Zealand’s child poverty rate is a definitive 23% rather the finding is that using this measure, the child poverty rate is falling, albeit  slowly.

  The material hardship measure shows a falling child material hardship rate using a threshold equivalent to the ‘standard’ EU level, down from a peak of 21% immediately after the GFC to 14% in 2014. Using the more severe threshold, there was a slight rise through the GFC to 10% and a small fall to 8%, the level it was at before the GFC. 

This subject is so technical that most people's eyes glaze over.

But the Greens should be called out on their constant refusal to acknowledge improving indicators.


2 comments:

Mark Hubbard said...

According to James Burke, thanks to science and capitalism we're heading from scarce resources to infinite abundance (via nanotech) over next 50 years.

Don't tell Greens, though, in so many ways there's no votes in that for them.

Mark Hubbard said...

Damn, sorry, forgot to copy the link for my above comment :)

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/201765835/rise-of-the-machines