Sharp departure in child poverty approach

Released today, the government's new Child and Youth Strategy might, at first glance, look like a rehash of Jacinda Ardern's child poverty reduction plan. However, it contains some major differences. 

For one, it will track the number of children in benefit-dependent households. This recognises the obvious pitfall of  simply increasing benefit payments to parents, which only draws more onto benefits and makes it harder for them to get off. Hence, under Ardern's plan, we saw a 26% increase in children reliant on benefits between 2017 and 2023. 

Unlike Ardern, who refused to acknowledge the poorer outcomes for children in unemployed households, Minister Louise Upston does. This includes higher rates of abuse, higher likelihood of interaction with Oranga Tamariki and greater likelihood of becoming benefit-dependent when they reach adulthood. There is ample data and evidence to show that is the case.

Supporting this new direction, the specific poverty reduction target has shifted to 'material hardship', reflecting that it isn't necessarily how much money poor households with children receive but what they do with it. The material hardship measurement quantifies what a child is forgoing, for example "not being able to afford two pairs of shoes." 

(The government's coalition-partner ACT might take note here that the document states, "Children in benefit-receiving households are 3.5 times more likely to be in material hardship than children in working households." That lends strong support for ACT's policy of expanding payment cards - already in use for very young parents - whereby the benefit is not paid fully in cash but loaded onto a card for use in supermarkets and other selected retailers. It also supports money management to ensure rent and utility bills get paid on time. Interventionist maybe, but this is taxpayer's money and, most importantly, it is provided so children are properly cared for.)

Another clue to how National's approach differs sharply from previous Labour policy is their stated current strategy of "increasing the In-work Tax Credit". This grows the gap between income from working and income from being on a benefit, a critical necessity in a properly functioning economy. During Jacinda Ardern's time, benefits were officially linked to wage growth, a radical departure from all previous Labour administrations which had linked benefits to the cost of living or CPI. National has now reversed this incredibly damaging policy.

As well as monitoring material hardship, other 'Child Poverty Related Indicators' the government has chosen to measure and target are "housing affordability, student attendance, educational achievement and potentially avoidable hospitalisations." This indicates a far more holistic view of poverty than Labour ever reached. For Labour (and the Greens) child poverty is always about a lack of money. Yet we all know that there are income-poor children in this country who do very well because their parents prioritise them.

Upston concludes her release about this new strategy with, "To achieve lasting reductions in child poverty rates we must break the long-term cycles of disadvantage and intergenerational benefit dependency."

Therein lies the crucial difference. Jacinda Ardern would never, ever have spoken those words.