Porirua Mayor to eradicate child poverty

Good luck with that. No central government in the western world has achieved it. From today's Dominion Post:

"Porirua Mayor Nick Leggett has hit out at Government suggestions that councils should stick to core services such as sewage , roads and libraries. Porirua City Council's plan, which outlines spending for the next ten years includes a vision of a poverty-free city, and Mr Leggett insists it has a "moral obligation" to stamp out child poverty."

A "moral obligation" no less. You, the ratepayer, have a moral obligation to ensure that other people's children are free from poverty. It's not enough that central government imposes this fatuous claim on you, he wants to duplicate it. On the upside, when the imposition becomes so localised you find yourself having to share your wages with the large family next door the absurdity and outrageousness of the proposition becomes evident.


And what motivates Mr Leggett?

"The Inside Child Poverty: A Special Report documentary which screened on television last year, spurred Mr Leggett's vision for the council to step up."

Influenced by sensationalist propaganda which I wrote about here and here.

Porirua ratepayers will no doubt be delighted with this news.

More newly-named welfare benefits

16 and 17 year olds and 16 to 18 year old teen parents who are receiving government financial assistance.

From 30 July 2012, a new Youth Payment and a new Young Parent Payment will be introduced with youth-focused obligations.

To qualify young people will need to be in education or training and they will have to meet certain obligations such as undertaking budgeting courses and, if a parent, parenting courses. Some of their basic costs like rent and power will be paid directly to suppliers with a small in-hand allowance paid direct to the young person and any remainder of their payment placed on a payment card for groceries.

To enable this policy to work the Minister is asking for the private sector to help:  

Letter to providers about youth services 

Dear provider, 

Changes to the way we work with young people 

The Government has announced its intention to undertake major changes to the welfare system. One of the first areas of focus is how Work and Income will manage young people at risk of long term benefit dependency. Currently too many young people in New Zealand are not in school, training or work. In addition to this, we know more than half the young people who end up on a benefit before they’re 18 years old spend at least five of the next 10 years on welfare. These people require intensive support, attention and encouragement. We need to change the way we identify, support and manage these young people before they end up trapped in the cycle of welfare dependency – and we need your help to do it.

Well, I could point out what many libertarians have in the past, that government money corrupts the impetus and motivation of charitable endeavours. However, using tax to buy ' hand-up' assistance is still better than using it for 'hand-out' assistance.

Shearer hints at harder-line welfare policy

There's an ambiguity about the headline from the NZ Herald relating to David Shearer's breakfast speech.

Harder-line than previous or than National? And does this mean that Labour will be supporting the welfare reform legislation soon to pass through the House? Or will they call for tougher legislation? The Welfare Working Group had some recommendations rejected that Labour could pick up and promote.

Or is he simply indicating that Labour is dropping the ill-informed pre-election policy to extend the In Work Credit to beneficiary parents? Whatever this means, I'll tell you what I take from it.

Labour realises that the public are now behind welfare reform. They either have to support National and look for votes on another platform, or go further than National is currently prepared to.

Singapore's 'welfare state'

Recently I had the pleasure of spending the day with James Bartholomew when he visited NZ as part of a research tour in preparation for a follow up book to his The Welfare State We're In.
After NZ he was on his way back to Australia and then on to Singapore. This article from the Spectator describes what he found in Singapore.

Maxim makes no sense

A Maxim 'Real Issues' newsletter referring to welfare reform says:

Growth in welfare has become an increasingly critical issue in both countries over the last decade, particularly for the UK. While it's the largest area of spending for both countries, it takes up a third of New Zealand's GDP compared to almost half of the UK's. Since 2001, welfare spending has risen by four percent in New Zealand to $21.2 billion. It rose four times as fast in the UK, and now sits at 111 billion pounds (about NZ$213 billion).

If welfare in NZ was taking up a third of our GDP that would be about $56 billion. Goodness knows what half of the UK's GDP is.
Here is a graph from the London School of Economics.

It shows that not just welfare, but  education and health consume about 26 percent of GDP. In NZ the same areas of expenditure consume about 28 percent of GDP (I've used NZ$170 billion).

 Not sure what the Maxim writer is doing here. Perhaps intending to compare percentages of government spending but even then, the claim that in the UK welfare takes up half is quite wrong.

More on newborns added to a DPB

In 2010 4,800 newborns were added to a DPB

59 percent of the caregivers were Maori, 23 percent NZ European, 12 percent Pacific.

The highest rate of additions were in:

Whangarei
Rotorua
Whakatane
Kawerau
Wairoa
South Taranaki
Carteron

(Notice most of these are also areas associated with gang presence?)

The younger the mother appears in the system the higher the likelihood she will add further children. Those beginning aged 16-17 had a 45 percent possibility of adding further children.

Finally the following graph shows the rate of additional births between 1994 and 2010:

Shearer on National's DPB reforms

Gordon Campbell interviewing David Shearer. Interviewing? Actually, no it's more like cross-examining to drag out the desired response.  The following excerpt relates to the DPB reforms. Hopefully Shearer will at least revert to the Labour's position  pre-Goff/King's campaign promise. Perhaps other Labour MPs will line up behind candidate Josie Pagani who rejected the In Work Tax Credit extension to beneficiaries post election.

Well, lets take an example: welfare reform. Welfare reform is something that many of those middle class strugglers we’re talking about happen to support. Do you think that solo parents on the DPB should be made to work full time when their youngest child turns 14,- and part time when their youngest child is five?

I think you’ve really got to be careful about making things compulsory. There are many, many people out there by now who are – at the age that their children are now – who are saying ‘ I’ll go back to work again, for a lot of different reasons, and for a lot of economic reasons.” There are two issues here for me here – if you want someone to go back out to work again, there are at least three pre-conditions. One, they need to have the skills to be able to get work. Two, they need to have good childcare to be able to do it And three, there has to be the jobs. Now if you don’t talk about those three things, then there’s no point in talking about compulsory or optional or whatever. Those three things are essential pre-requisites. And what’s happening is that the government is talking about compulsion, of pushing people out while actually not providing the enabling part of it.

But the point is, the struggling middle class don’t want to wait for those pre-conditions to be met. They’re happy to have welfare reform now, and seem to have a striking lack of sympathy for people on the DPB. Do you oppose the DPB planks of the welfare reform process?

I don’t oppose the encouragement of getting people into work. I don’t think there’s a party in Parliament that doesn’t believe working isn’t better than being on some sort of welfare cheque, particularly for unemployed people. For DPBs its obviously slightly more difficult, in that child must come first. And for us, that’s the key issue. The other issue…is that the majority of women who are having children, who go back out to work,- and I know, because there are tons of them in my electorate here – who put their children into childcare, and are able to cope. But there is another group of people and or whatever reason – jobs, skills, adequate childcare – where they can’t do that. They don’t have that option, even if you wanted them to, or felt that was the best thing for them. So putting the child first means that – if you want to get women back into the work force – you do need those other things in place.

But in the real world in 2012, we’re going to have the government enacting a welfare policy whereby solo parents on the DPB will have to work full time once their youngest child is 14 – regardless of the state of the job market. There’s no quid pro quo I can see on the government’s reform agenda. So, will you oppose that measure?

If there are no jobs, if there is no training, if there’s no ability for somebody to get childcare then –

So that’s a yes, you will oppose it?

I would like to encourage to get people back to work whenever they…as soon as possible.

I’m trying to get past your preference, and get at what are you going to do when it hoves into view into Parliament. Are you going to vote against any measure of this sort, within that section of the welfare reform legislation?

We have to see what it looks like.

You know what it looks like. Bennett and Co. have made their intentions very clear.

I’ll say to you again : I believe people should be going back to work, or going to work – because some of them haven’t been to work – whenever that is possible for them to do that, and whenever it is in the best interests of their children. But I say again – if there is no ability to get good work, either through jobs, or through skills or through decent childcare then that’s not….

And finally, can I say that those things are of such a priority to you as a pre-condition that absent of them, you will vote against that part of the legislation ?

I want to look at the legislation before I tell you how I’m going to vote. I’m not going to be sitting here in the absence of a caucus discussion and telling you how I – or the Labour Party – are going to vote.

Fail for Campbell.

Child abuse - an ethnic or socio-economic problem?

David Farrar is criticising research claiming child abuse  isn't a cultural problem for Maori. He says,

High quality research would look at ethnic prevalence rates, while controlling other factors which might be an influence such as poverty, welfare status etc.  I’d be very interested to also see data on prevalence rates by welfare status, once income has been removed as a factor. In other words is there more child abuse in households where no adults work, than in households where at least one adult works – but has much the same level of income.

The data doesn't exist in NZ as far as I am aware. Children in poor families: does the source of family income change the picture? surveyed living standards but didn't touch on levels of abuse or neglect.

In 1996 researchers compared the CYF notification rate for the general population and welfare-reliant  homes and found a significantly higher rate for the latter. But the research didn't control for income.

The latest US National Incidence of Child Abuse and Neglect survey found:

The rate for children with no parent in the labor force (22.6 children per 1,000) is almost 3 times the rate for children an employed parent....

Children in families of low SES [socio-economic status] were at significantly greater risk of Harm Standard maltreatment overall. An estimated 22.5 children per 1,000 children in low–SES families experienced Harm Standard maltreatment, which is more than 5 times the rate of 4.4 per 1,000 children in families that were not of low SES.

Chances are there is considerable overlap.

But here's the kicker, and there is no reason why NZ should be any different,

... the incidence of Harm Standard physical abuse was significantly lower for children living with two married biological parents compared to children living in all other conditions. An estimated 1.9 per 1,000 children living with two married biological parents suffered Harm Standard physical abuse, compared to 5.9 or more per 1,000 children in other circumstances. In addition, children whose single parent had an unmarried, live–in partner were at significantly higher risk of Harm Standard physical abuse (19.5 children per 1,000)...

NZ statistics show that Maori are more likely to have  an unmarried, live–in partner. Which takes us back to the disproportion of child abuse and neglect amongst their children.


What does need pointing out perhaps is that the vast bulk of children - both Maori and Pakeha - are not abused or neglected.

Maharey back but no better

Ex Minister for Social Development, Steve Maharey, is back today in the DomPost claiming his welfare policies worked and there was no need for National to re-invent the wheel.
 

There is not the space here to list the policies developed to implement the framework, but it is worth noting that they were the result of a concerted effort to draw on the best of international and national thinking.

Did it work? Yes. Unemployment fell dramatically and the number of people on the domestic purposes benefit declined.

Unlike in all other OECD nations, the increase in the number of people claiming a benefit because of a disability or an illness began to slow.

Note the green band and below represent people who generally spend many more years on a benefit than those on the unemployment benefit. The vertical axis shows percentage of the working-age population. So under Labour inroads into dependence was not the big-tick  achieve Maharey claims.

Evaluation showed that the policies made a measurable difference. Treasury was so impressed when $300 million was returned to it in one year that it made the advances in social policy a feature in its annual report.

Despite this, when a change in government occurred, it was as if a new start had to be made. A welfare reform working party was established and it operated as if in a vacuum.

Years of experience were wasted. Now, we have a new policy framework which seems to be based on the idea that benefit numbers are rising because people do not want to work. History teaches us that this assumption is not well founded. There are those for whom work is anathema, but most people take work if they have the skills for the job, it pays a wage they can live on and details, such as having a safe place for their children to stay, are taken care of.
Sole parents are a good example. Although current policy portrays sole parents on a benefit as young and irresponsible, they are typically women in their early 30s who have left a relationship. They stay on the benefit for a few years at most and then get on with their lives.

How much better current policy would be if it had built on previous experience.

Maharey is still grinding the organ. We now have new research that presents rather a different picture. For example,
 

On average, sole parents receiving main benefits had more disadvantaged backgrounds than might have been expected:

·          just over half had spent at least 80% of the history period observed (the previous 10 years in most cases) supported by main benefits

·          a third appeared to have become parents in their teenage years.

This reflects the over-representation of sole parents with long stays on benefit among those in receipt at any point in time, and the longer than average stays on benefit for those who become parents as teenagers.

 

 "How much better current policy"  is now it is evidence-based.

29 percent of DPB population added babies to their benefit

Media Release

29 PERCENT OF DPB POPULATION ADDED BABIES TO THEIR BENEFIT

According to just-released Cabinet papers, at November 2011, 29 percent of single parents on the domestic purposes benefit had included additional newborn children in their benefit.

Welfare commentator Lindsay Mitchell said that the paper  describes how parents who have additional children are more likely to have started on the DPB with a newborn (rather than having exited a relationship with a child), and have no record of having been employed before, after or during spells on a benefit.

The paper also describes the higher incidence of Maori adding children to a benefit. It says that the on-benefit birth rate has increased between 1997 and 2010 from under 35  to 50 per 1,000 women receiving the DPB .

Mitchell says these are the circumstances that have prompted the government to introduce policy to reverse this trend.

"It is well-documented that children who spend many years in workless homes experience poorer social, health and educational outcomes. There can be no justification for adding children to a benefit received  on the basis that the mother is already unable to raise her children independently."

Where are the jobs?

Last week I did a guest stint on the Radio New Zealand Jim Mora panel with Findlay McDonald and Gary McCormick. They were both objecting to the DPB reforms on the basis of, where are the jobs? I made comments along the following lines (without the pictures!)

When the demographic change New Zealand is facing is taken into account, it is clear that labour force is going to shrink in relation to the non-labour force. 

The graph below shows that the ratio of the combined 0-14 and 65+ populations is going to grow from around 0.5/1 today to 0.7/1 over the next twenty years. The demand for goods and services continues from the non-working population thus increasing demand on the working-age population. Hence it is so important for the government to set in place the legislation that requires beneficiaries to work when jobs are available.

Source: Facing Fiscal Futures
(http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/media-speeches/speeches/fiscalfutures)

Although it has grown, New Zealand still has one of the lowest rates of single parent employment in the OECD. This is, at least in part, a reflection of New Zealand’s historically
open-ended and relatively generous DPB.

Sole parent employment rates across the OECD, around 2007

Source: OECD family database (www.oecd.org/els/social/family/database)

So there is ample evidence jobs will be there, particularly in the care and health sectors, and ample economic imperative for more sole mothers to participate in the workforce.

However, to my mind, an even more important aspect of increasing their participation is the positive benefit for their children. Breaking the inter-generational cycle of welfare dependence won’t happen until children live with at least one working parent who is building their own expectations of a similar life.

Welfare reforms in children's interest

The New Zealand Herald  today published my response to a column by Susan St John, spokesperson for the Child Poverty Action Group.

Why Key won't budge on Super

On Friday John Key was on Radio Live with co-hosts Rodney Hide and Willie Jackson. Jackson was predictably getting into Key about the welfare reform, especially the requirement for women who have an additional child on the benefit to be available for part-time work, but Key was fending off the objections effortlessly and convincingly.

I rang in to say that I supported the reform but to ask, given most countries are raising the eligibility age for pensions, that life expectancies are moving out, that people are staying healthy for longer, why did he commit to keeping the Super eligibility age at 65 and does he regret it?

You can hear the answer here if you select Friday and 12.30pm (towards the end of the half hour slot). But listen to the whole hour because Rodney talking with the PM is worth listening to.

Essentially in 2008 National were aware that Labour were planning a widespread campaign of misinformation saying Key was going to raise the Super age and he wanted to put that to bed. (Ironic when you remember that raising the age was Labour's best policy in 2011).

Key also said that Treasury advised him that there were bigger problems to tackle than Super - rising health costs for instance. Super wasn't that big an issue apparently.

Rodney observed that the Retirement Commissioner thinks it is however and pushed him on that a bit. I get cut off so missed the exchange.

So really we are stuck with around $1.5 - 2 billion worth of unnecessary spending because of politics. I believe voters are prepared to accept a staged raising of the age (similar to what is occurring in the US) and refusing to budge is going to be a problem for Key in 2014. What should National do?

Just a tad windy here

>

Childcare use increases as parents work more

Statistics NZ have just released a survey about childcare use and working arrangements and the change between 1998 and 2009.  I have summarised some of the key findings from the tables available:

The total percentage of children in some sort of formal care rose from 51.9 to 53.9 percent BUT it dropped significantly for Pacific children. Public kindergarten, kohanga reo, play centres had drops in percentages attending whereas playgroup, childcare centres and organised home-based care rose.

Employed parents rose from 67.5 to 73.4 percent. The biggest rise was for Maori from 47.4 to 61.0 percent; Pacific rose 53.4 to 62.4; and European 73.5 to 73.9 percent.

Employed mothers rose from 54.1 to 60.9 percent; fathers from 84.5 to 88.6 percent

Parents who worked in the weekend rose from 22.6 to 28.0 percent; Pacific parents  had the biggest increase from 12.8 to 24.9 followed by Maori from 19.4 to 28.5 ; European rose from 24.0 to 27.5 percent. The percentage of sole parents working in the weekend rose from 16.2 to 28.1 percent.

Children aged under one had a fall in the percentage in any sort of formal care from 15 to 12.9 percent. All other ages registered an increase.

The percentage of children in 'no cost'  childcare rose from 13.5 to 29.5 percent.

The median weekly hours spent in care rose from 10 to 17 hours.

Percentage of children attending out-of-school care almost doubled from 3.8 to 7.5 percent. The are with the largest percent in out-of-school acre was Wellington; the spread across ethnicity almost even.

The maternal occupation that showed the largest increase was 'professional' which rose from 18.2 to 26 percent. The equivalent statistics for paternal occupation rose from 13.1 to 15.9 percent.

"Poverty is no excuse"

The latest issue of Rise, MSD's magazine, contains the story of Henare and Pam O'Keefe, a Flaxmere couple who have fostered hundreds of abused and neglected children over many years. It's well worth reading and uplifts rather than depresses.

But what are the leftist poverty-pushing politicians and academia going to make of this?

Poverty, says Henare, is no excuse for abusing your family. He thinks back to his own childhood, in a dirt-floor home with no electricity and wonders how his parents managed to feed them all. “But I can recall nothing, but good.”

UK reforms to reduce benefit fraud

With respect to welfare, New Zealand appears to be following wherever the UK goes at the moment. The government has promised legislation that will deal with benefit fraud this term.

 "A second Bill containing an overhaul of benefit categories and a clamp down on fraud will be introduced in July."

Currently people who commit benefit fraud but are still in the community can simply stay on the benefit albeit with repayments (of fraudulently acquired sums) deducted. So it is interesting to see what Britain is doing:

New powers in the Welfare Reform Bill will introduce tougher penalties to deter fraudsters:

• Abolishing the option of accepting a caution

• A minimum administrative penalty of £350, or 50% of the overpayment, whichever is higher, with four weeks loss of benefit, even for attempted fraud

• Extended loss of benefit for offences, which result in a conviction, of 13 weeks for a first offence, then 26 weeks for a second offence and 3 years for a third offence

• An immediate 3 year loss of benefit for serious or organised benefit fraud or identity fraud

• A new £50 civil penalty in cases of claimant error which results in an overpayment due to negligence or failure

More misrepresentation of welfare numbers

Sometimes an idea gets purchase and is very hard to shift.  For example, under Labour, during the economic boom, the numbers of people on welfare plummeted. That is only true for those on the unemployment benefit. But here are two examples of recent statements  supporting this erroneous idea. Remember too that the reforms in the spotlight this week relate primarily to the DPB, so the reader assumes that when commentators refer to beneficiaries they mean those under discussion.

Duncan Garner:

Labour reduced the numbers of people on benefits drastically in 2004/05 when the economy was going gangbusters.

Gordon Campbell:

Less than ten years ago, a booming economy had reduced beneficiary numbers to historical lows.

Are either of these statements supported by the following graph?

(Click on the graph because it is difficult to see the grey shaded area that represents the unemployment benefit).

Tip of the iceberg

This is grim, but what can be said about Raurangi Marino?

That are thousands more potential Raurangi Marinos out there?

Put the  pieces together.

Gang members sire more children than most men.

 "Every Mongrel Mob man creates a line - that is the number of children they can produce. So they will have a couple of girlfriends and they might have a wife, and they will have mistresses, and they will be in on-and-off relationships," he said.

The number of gang members incarcerated is growing.

The number of inmates with gang affiliations has doubled in the past five years and the Corrections Department is developing a programme to help offenders break their ties. Gang members are almost twice as likely as other prisoners to reoffend within 12 months of leaving prison, at a rate of 41 per cent compared with 22 per cent.

The percentage of Maori children who are abused or neglected is way out of kilter with their share of the general population and shows no sign of declining.

And the economy that fuels all this, welfare, is disproportionately taken up by Maori with 46 percent of their females aged between 20 and 30 on a benefit.

And this is relevant also.


In Nga Iwi o te Motu, the late Michael King wrote: 

[Peter]  Buck  wrote  in  his  annual  report  [as  Native  health  officer],  “The [Maori]  communism  of  the  past  meant  industry,  training  in  arms,  good physique, the keeping of the law, the sharing of the tribal burden, and the preservation of life. The communism of today means indolence, sloth, decay of   racial   vigour,   the   crushing   of   individual   effort,   the   spreading   of introduced  infections,  diseases,  and  the  many  evils  that  are  petrifying  his advance.” [Maui] Pomare added: “The Maori having been an active race and always having been kept in a state of excitement by wars and the rumour of wars,  can  now  only  find  vent  for  his  feelings  on  the  racecourse,  gambling and billiard-playing, with an occasional bout in the Land court”.

And in gangs.

Gordon Campbell's misrepresentations

I have been commenting on Gordon Campbell's blog , once again rebutting his emotive and inaccurate claims about welfare, and welfare reforms. Here is one I haven't tackled yet:

Blaming the welfare system for the current existence of poverty is like seeing the incidence of Third World diseases in this country, and blaming it on the existence of hospitals.

I do blame the welfare system for the current level of 'poverty'. James L Payne puts it best:

Any pattern of repeated giving reinforces whatever prompted the gift … thus we arrive at a great paradox, what I call the ‘aggravation principle’ of sympathetic giving: repeated giving prompted by the misfortune of recipients tends to increase the misfortune.

Treating disease does not increase the incidence of it.