Covid 19 vaccination rates by ethnicity

 Regular readers will know I love data. It's like a toy you can play with in different ways. The visual representation relays speedily what raw numbers do not. So for no other reason, I was drawn to this chart and thought others may be interested:

Latest benefit numbers

Three graphs for you from March quarter benefit fact sheets released today.

Unsurprisingly, large increase in Jobseeker numbers year-on-year. Though on an optimistic note the numbers are slightly below what Treasury was forecasting:

Note the massive increase in emergency housing expenditure:

And the overall picture...

What happens to children of beneficiaries?

In regard to my last post questioning what children learn from beneficiary mothers with ingrained helplessness and over-developed senses of entitlement, a commentor, Sam, asked "What happens to children of beneficiaries when they become adults?"

I am aware of various NZ research which answers the question.

Broadly speaking, the longer the parent is dependent, the worse the risk of inter-generational dependence becomes.

While Bill English was Finance Minister there were multiple actuarial reports into the benefit system.

From 2015:

"New analysis this year shows that just under half of all children born in 1993/94 and 1994/95 with a parent on benefits during their childhood went on to become beneficiaries themselves before age 23; 75% of those from long-term benefit families."

And:

About three quarters of current clients aged 16 to 25 (for whom data is available) had a parent who received benefits during their childhood. 45% of the overall liability for all beneficiaries under age 25 is associated with children from families that received benefits for 80% or more of their teen years. 

Perhaps most telling, the following graph shows the probability of a child entering the benefit by the number of years their parent is on welfare (SPS = Sole Parent Support). 

A child who has spent all or most of their life dependent on their parent's benefit is very likely to migrate onto their own benefit as a young adult. In my experience as a volunteer it wasn't uncommon to find the parent encouraging this event as it upped the household income.

The occurrence of inter-generational benefit receipt is now well-documented.For other research see links here.

But a happy story to finish with. One of my clients (then on a benefit but now working) was very unhappy when WINZ advised her son he'd be better off on a benefit than working part-time. This because of the board she was making him pay. She was trying to instill a different set of values, while I was helping him produce and print a decent CV. That was maybe 14-15 years ago. Last year the same young man and his partner bought their first home.

Where and when will it end?

Here is a mother on a Sole Parent Support benefit. She has four children and debt to MSD of nearly $10,000. She repays $46 out of the basic benefit of $386 each week and says, 

"It’s a big difference 'cause we need that money. It’s not enough, even the benefits not enough. If they cannot do anything then we’re going to need a new Government that cares." 

Put aside that on top of the basic weekly rate of $386.78 she'll receive:

Souh Auckland accommodation Supplement = $305 max

Family tax credits for four children = $386.79

That's $1,078.57

And putting aside that there are many other top-ups including for non-repayable grants rent, food, etc...

Where is the father or fathers of her four children?

Why has she no sense of personal agency?

Where did she learn the mindset of entitlement?

What are her four children learning from her?

And why do idiot journalists frame her situation (and thousands of others) as being put into debt by the government because they don't earn enough on their benefit? (You'll have to watch the newsclip for that additional contortion of the facts).

ACT MP Karen Chhour off to a good start

 From Newshub:

ACT is accusing Labour MP Willie Jackson of "perpetuating a victimhood mentality" for saying we have "institutional racism" in "every area of New Zealand society"...

...ACT's Social Development and Children spokesperson Karen Chhour calls these "inflammatory comments" which will "only perpetuate a victimhood mentality".

"Constantly blaming racism for the problems faced by Māori is wrong. We can't move forward as a nation if that is our only response," she says in a statement.

"Rather than using such divisive language, our Government should be uniting New Zealanders behind good ideas that lift everyone up.

"Jackson's comments also promote a narrative that all Māori are the same and that we don't have our own individual aspirations." 

Chhour criticised Jackson, saying Labour had shown it doesn't believe in 'by Māori, for Māori' solutions in the past.

"[Jackson's] waatea (organisation) sponsored a charter school, but his own party completely opposed the concept and shut it down," Chhour says.

"Labour likes to believe it is the saviour of Māori, but it clearly has no idea how to fix our country's deeply-ingrained problems."

Karen is totally sincere in her comments. I have been meaning to put up her Maiden Speech and now is a good time to do it. Too often children are politicised. They are used to promote leftist ideology: greater state redistribution of wealth. Chhour's speech left me in no doubt that she actually does want to improve children's lives, especially Maori children.