According to a report in Stuff the Prime Minister - also Child Poverty Reduction Minister - asked for advice on raising benefits by $50 weekly. That would bring more children out of poverty on paper. But she was advised that the incentives to work, which are already weak for sole parents, would be even further eroded.
The PM seems disinterested in the question of whether it is more important for children to be in working homes than on benefits.
Her overriding goal is for family incomes to rise regardless of source.
Since she became responsible for reducing child poverty Ardern has done a number of things including creating Best Start, lifting child tax credits, linking benefits to wages and increasing core payment rates (and it won't stop there based on the advice sought since.)
That has coincided with a nineteen percent increase - or 32,427 - more children in benefit households.
Currently almost two thirds of the children are in sole parent homes and the proportion of parents who have been dependent for more than a year has increased from 75 to 79 percent.
Now consider the following Treasury evidence (work done under Bill English) about the poor outcomes associated with benefit dependency:
These are the real risks the PM is prepared to take so she can talk about lifting thousands of children out of poverty.
Perhaps in a generation's time there will be damaged adults calling for an apology from her for being reckless with their lives?
No comments:
Post a Comment