"Orphan’s Benefit is a weekly payment which helps carers supporting a child or young person whose parents have died or can't be found, or can’t look after them because they have a long-term health condition or incapacity."
I included these when recently asking MSD how many more children were dependent on benefits.
Children on these benefits have risen by 18 percent from December 2017 to December 2019.
Yet again we see Maori children way over-represented.
Many of these children will be in whangai, foster or grandparent care. Anecdotally (listening to grandparents raising grandchildren) drugs are a large part of the problem.
Apart from a small number of tragedies (Orphan's benefit only represents 2 percent of the total numbers) the growing columns largely reflect a failure of biological parents to provide care.
(The growth is not the result of the law change to allow dependent children to stay in foster care till an older age. In each and every single year age-band the numbers have increased. Babies under 1 year increased by 44%)
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