Talking up child poverty

Talking up child poverty is not an unusual practice. But it normally comes from the mouths of any number of people who make their living  documenting or advocating as part of the ' child poverty industry'.

An opinion piece in the NZ Herald earlier this week by the former head of Telstra Clear, exhorted business to get more involved in solving the social problems of NZ children:

Let's look at the facts. Today, a quarter of children live in poverty in New Zealand. That means going without a doctor, good food, shoes, raincoats and decent housing. If you look at Pasifika children, that statistic rises to 51 per cent; and more than half of Maori families are dependent on benefit incomes.

Facts?

Firstly, Mr Freeth has defined living in poverty by the 'reduced living standards measure' which is where his 51 percent of Pasifika children comes from - MSD's  2008 Living Standards Survey. So, 51 percent of Pasifika children experienced (or didn't as the case may be) 4 or more of the following

Ownership/Participation

• A good bed
• Ability to keep main rooms adequately warm
• Suitable clothes for important or special occasions
• Home contents insurance
• Presents for family and friends on special occasions

Economising ‘a lot’ (to keep down costs to help pay for other basics)

• Continued wearing worn out clothing
• Continued wearing worn out shoes
• Went without or cut back on fresh fruit and vegetables
• Bought cheaper or less meat than wanted
• Postponed visits to the doctor
• Did not pick up a prescription
• Put up with feeling cold to save on heating costs
• Went without or cut back on visits to family or friends
• Did not go to a funeral (tangi) you wanted to

And there are other measures mentioned like not being able to have friends to a party of your own bedroom when aged 10 plus. It's all very subjective stuff. BUT experiencing reduced living standards does not condemn a child.

Just for some balance, if the OECD measure of child poverty was used the percentage would immediately drop to around 12% of NZ children.

Then he says that, "More than half of Maori families are dependent on benefit incomes." Say what?

I'd be the first to agree that Maori are disproportionately dependent on welfare and it's not good for their children. But the percentage is not that high.

At December 2012 around 112,000 Maori received a main benefit. There were around 375,000 18-64 year-old Maori in 2012. So just on 30 percent of the Maori working age population receives a benefit.

The proportion for Maori single parents on a benefit is higher but even the highest age group - 20-29 - doesn't exceed half.


I have no idea where he got his statistic from.

Ironically later in the piece he writes:

Our statistics are not simply unacceptable, they are truly outrageous. They are beyond comprehension. And where, as business leaders, have we been, I wonder, as more and more reports are released showing more issues with children and youth health and welfare?

Probably getting on with their first priority - running a business - and feeling suspicious about media reports exaggerating child poverty.

Truth column Feb 28 - March 6

The Truth site is now up-to-date and I should be able to post my column weekly again.

The 'living wage'  idea poses more questions than it answers. Apparently the proposed non-compulsory hourly wage of $18.40 is based on the needs of a family with two children, with one full-time and one part-time worker.

But someone with dependent children who is currently earning less than the living wage will almost certainly be receiving  Working For Families assistance. As well, someone without children might be receiving accommodation supplement which helps with rent, board or a mortgage.

More

Farmers likened to "solo mums" - Helen Kelly

Regarding the government assistance available to farmers in officially drought-ridden areas, in a column titled  "We are all beneficiaries now" Helen Kelly writes,

Solo mums are a bit like these farmers. They are working but not earning and need community support to do that....  The drought shows how important social protection systems are.  When the unexpected happens – your farm dries up, you get sick, you lose your job, you find yourself alone raising your kids – the community steps in by way of tax funded Social Protection. 

I wonder how farmers feel about being compared to people who default to a welfare lifestyle in their thousands every year?

Tax-paying farmers are subject to the whim of the weather; many DPB mums are subject to their own (or their partner's) personal whims and wants. But Kelly can't differentiate between people who are  products of a habitual hand-out regime and people who need temporary help.

Shoring up support for a debased benefit system on the back of drought-stricken farmers sucks.

(Should farmers get government assistance? A tax break to buy income protection insurance against such advents would be better).

Truth Column Feb 21-27

My Truth column for February 21-27. The political poll referred to in this column has since been superseded by others.

Here's a scary headline: LABOUR, GREENS WITH MINOR PARTIES WOULD WIN ELECTION.  So said the latest Roy Morgan poll. Emboldened Green co-leader Metiria Turei shoved aside her education spokesperson to lead the charge against charter schools and pave the way to becoming Education Minister in 2014. Any charter school would be turned into a state school under her direction, she threatened. In other words she'd remove the "greater flexibility in exchange for greater accountability of educational outcomes" promised to partnership schools. Before the initiative has chance to prove itself, the Greens (and Labour) would trample it dead.
What else could we expect from such a government?

More.

And a few words from the Minister...

Regarding Jacinda Ardern's claims and what the Herald on Sunday published, Paula Bennett has responded;

"Ms Ardern and the Herald on Sunday need to get their facts right. The Herald on Sunday reported today that changes to youth are progressing through Parliament and will be introduced shortly. Wake up - they passed through the House last year and were implemented in August 2012."
“This is shoddy journalism and scaremongering by Labour. They might not like the truth and prefer to talk down people's chances of finding work, but I believe in people and their abilities, and want to support and encourage them in their hunt for work,” says Mrs Bennett.

Note the Herald headline has now changed. From memory it was something like Benefit numbers swell. If I google that term said article comes up with a new title.

The print media turns over a lot of young journalists. Or moves them around different portfolios. It's a good thing the blogosphere is now around to hold them to account.

(Bennett should also be careful when talking about DPB numbers to explicitly refer to sole parents. As is stands her release has the potential to confuse when matched against MSD's benefit factsheets.)

Median time on welfare 7.4 years

I was reviewing some of the papers presented to the WWG back in 2010 and noted some important statistics relating to the degree of dependence on welfare in New Zealand. 

Of people aged 28-64 receiving benefit at June 2009 (for whom there is a full ten years since they turned 18), half had spent at least three-quarters of the preceding decade on benefit. Just under a quarter had received benefit for all of the decade.

- the median proportion of time spent on benefit in the preceding decade was 74%

- 23% had spent all of the preceding decade on benefit. 

- Māori were much more likely than non-Maori to be in receipt of benefit and had spent larger shares of time in receipt of benefit, on average, than non-Maori.

- Pacific people and people from “Other” ethnic groups in receipt of benefit had, on

average, spent smaller shares of time in receipt of benefit than both Māori and European benefit recipients.

 

(That last statistic is important because too often Pacific people get put together with Maori in a 'Polynesian' category. That does a disservice to Pacific people who aren't over-represented in the benefit system in either numbers or duration of dependence.)

A lot of left-leaning commentators and politicians play down welfare dependence by using statistics pertaining to  the total population use of benefits over time. Naturally many people do use welfare at some point and that skews the overall picture towards shorter periods in receipt. Here's an example from Jacinda Ardern:

"There are 112,000 sole parents on the Domestic Purposes Benefit. Most come off it within four years"

What she omits to mention is many go back on it quite quickly. The report linked to shows that at June 2009 73 percent of DPB sole parents had spent 50 percent or more of the preceding decade on a benefit. These are the numbers that describe long-term dependence - the problem welfare reforms are trying to reduce - and it is wilfully misleading  to use any others.

Children's Day dying a death

Today was Children's Day. News to me. This media release was the first I knew about it:

The future of New Zealand depends on the well being of every child. Child Poverty Action Group says Children’s Day this Sunday is a chance for New Zealanders to reflect on our collective responsibility for the well-being of all our children.

Hopefully people are tiring of annual, designated 'concern' days for everything and anything. The over-subscription to 'days' has cast a pall over their efficacy. Usually a socialist construct designed to put political heat on governments to 'do something', I look forward to their demise.

More bad stats from Ardern

Jacinda Ardern is clutching at straws.

In the NZ Herald today:

Labour spokeswoman for social development Jacinda Ardern said the highest unemployment numbers were at around 10 per cent in the early 1990s but support for solo parents and invalids have hit record highs during Bennett's reign as Social Development Minister.

Infoshare shows that DPB numbers reached a high of 113,329 in 1998.
In 2011 a new high was reached of 114,039.

However, not all people on the DPB are "solo parents".

The table below shows that at December 2011 100,266 sole parents were on the DPB...

   

Benefit	December 2011	September 2012	December 2012	Quarterly change		Annual change
Domestic Purposes Benefits (DPB)	114,230	110,738	109,118	-1,620	-1.5%	-5,112	-4.5%
DPB-SP	100,266	96,648	95,138	-1,510	-1.6%	-5,128	-5.1%
DPB-CSI	7,650	7,806	7,943	137	1.8%	293	3.8%
DPB-WA	3,859	4,003	3,773	-230	-5.7%	-86	-2.2%
EMA	2,455	2,281	2,264	-17	-0.7%	-191	-7.8%

  
...compared to 106,881 in 1998 (contained within 2002 report here)

	1998
	Number
Domestic Purposes Benefit – Sole Parent	106,881
Domestic Purposes Benefit – Caring for Sick or Infirm	1,925
Domestic Purposes Benefit – Woman Alone	2,945
Emergency Maintenance Allowance	1,578
Total	113,329

So every thing else Ardern says in this article in relation to the DPB and sole parents, failure of work-testing etc is bunkum.

Let's look at the invalid's benefit. Using the same Infoshare table, yes, numbers reached a record high in 2011. But under National they increased from 85,197  2008 to 88,134 in 2011 - or 3.4%. Under Labour the increase was 51,173 in 1999 to  79,077 in 2007 or 54.6 percent. 

And as a percentage of the working age population numbers on the Invalid benefit have been trending down since 2009.

Ardern is quite pathetic.

But doesn't the reporter have some responsibility to dig a bit deeper?

ACT's problem

PRIMARY VOTE	National	Labour	GreenParty	NZFirst	MaoriParty*	ManaParty*	ACTNZ	UnitedFuture	Conservatives	Other
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
General Election, July 27, 2002	20.9	41.3	7	10.4	n/a	n/a	7.1	6.7	n/a	6.6
General Election, September 17, 2005	39.1	41.1	5.3	5.72	2.12	n/a	1.51	2.67	n/a	2.48
General Election, November 8, 2008	44.93	33.99	6.72	4.07	2.39	n/a	3.65	0.87	n/a	3.38
General Election, November 26, 2011	47.31	27.48	11.06	6.59	1.43	1.08	1.07	0.60	2.65	0.73

I was pondering the latest Roy Morgan poll results and this table in particular.

Thinking about the minor parties, it struck me that ACT has nothing going for it.

Greens have environmentalism.

NZ First has a charismatic leader.

The Maori party has race.

Mana has extreme disaffection.

United Future has religion, though losing it to the Conservative Party.

But what does ACT have?

Freedom isn't it. Because all of the people who fall into the above categories would consider themselves primarily interested in freedom. Freedom is highly subjective.

Capitalism? Business people are pragmatists and will vote for a likely, safe result. And most don't actually mind government being significantly involved in the economy.

ACT has no brand. It has nothing for people to emotionally identify with.

This isn't an attack on ACT. It's just my explanation for why they poll so poorly. ACT is going to have to do something very radical if they want to survive the 2014 election.

I'm not much of a marketer but I'd go back to basics and hammer personal responsibility hard. Get spokespeople outside of parliament making statements that make National look wishy washy.

When New Zealanders took responsibility for themselves, their families, their friends we had a stronger economy, more social cohesion, less inequality, less crime. But it can't be a backwards looking campaign. In many ways the country is a much better place to live in today than in the 1950s and 60s. Women in particular play a much bigger role in the economy and have much more autonomy. But there is a group of women (and their children) shut out as a direct result of diminished personal responsibility. ACT needs to keep consistently showing that individual responsibility is paramount. For example, a child failed by a parent can never be fully compensated by other minor players in their lives. They need to be brave enough to say things that will be unpopular in parliament and with the media but will resonate with a large, non-vocal section of the population. BUT they need more voices.

Unfortunately John Banks may be an impediment to gathering those voices.

Husbands and Wives

I received the following press release from my friend Bob McCoskrie:

‘Husband’ and ‘Wife’ To Be Removed From Family Laws

Family First NZ says the Select Committee report on the same-sex marriage bill confirms that the terms ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ will be removed from 16 pieces of legislation as it seeks to redefines marriage.

I sent this quick e-mail:

This pisses me off. I have always held the terms wife and husband dear. I don't refer to my husband as my partner because  it's too ambiguous.

So what is left after husband and wife, 'marriage partner'? You know that I support same-sex marriage but this is an encroachment on my 'culture'.

What has the response been like to this revelation?

Update: Kiwiblog has a post clarifying the situation. "So no the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill does not remove the term “husband and wife” from the law books. It doesn’t remove it from the Marriage Act. It doesn’t introduce the term spouse into the law as a replacement – the term is already used in 136 Acts of Parliament. This issue is a red herring."

Truth column Feb 7-13

The Truth site catching up quickly now. This was my column for Waitangi Day:

In 1987 I left New Zealand. Returning in 1992 two new things struck me: Japanese imports and The Treaty of Waitangi. Asked at a petrol station if my borrowed car was a Japanese import, I drew a blank. Apparently it was. Once alerted, I started seeing cheap imports everywhere.
Next, a friend asked what I knew about the Treaty Principles. The what? 

More

No work-tests for almost two thirds of beneficiaries

The following is an exchange during parliament's question time yesterday:

6. Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (National—Maungakiekie) to the Minister for Social
Development: What impact have the Government’s welfare reforms had to date?
Hon PAULA BENNETT (Minister for Social Development): The Government’s welfare reforms are seeing real gains for New Zealanders. Future Focus, implemented in September 2012 as a precursor to our current major reforms, introduced clear obligations and greater fairness to the benefit system. Since Future Focus started, more than 171,000 benefits have been cancelled because people found work, which is a good result in spite of a tough local market and a global economic recession. Over the last 2 years benefit numbers are now reducing by 165 net every week, on average, which equates to about 34 people every working day.
Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: What changes has she seen as a result of the annual reapplication requirement?
Hon PAULA BENNETT: One simple policy change requiring unemployment beneficiaries to reapply if they remain on the benefit after a year has seen more than 21,400 people come off that benefit, with savings of more than $74 million to the taxpayer.
Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga: What results have there been to date by increasing expectations and obligations for those receiving benefits?
Hon PAULA BENNETT: Prior to National’s Future Focus changes, 79 percent of beneficiaries had no work-test obligations at all. Because of Future Focus, it is now around 64 percent and will reduce further with the changes coming through in the second welfare bill. There is no doubt at all that expectations mean that we see better results for people.

On current numbers that's 217,000 working-age people with no obligation to become self-supporting.

At least the percentage is reducing.

Quick international comparison

Statistics NZ has just issued this handy table. NZ isn't top or bottom in any category except % population under 15 years old. Ours is highest (due to the Polynesian population):

International comparisons with our top five visitor source countries

Truth column Jan 17-23

Truth's site is coming together. Here's my column from Jan 17-23. Bit out-of-date now but the topic is perennial:

A friend texted to tell me her partner was down at the local cop shop. Making enquiries about an unrelated matter, police had smelt dope and entered his flat demanding he reveal what he had. Was that legal, she asked? Yes, I responded.

More

Ministry of Men's Affairs

A press release about the topic of the day, prosecuting beneficiary partners, has appeared from the MINISTRY OF MEN’S AFFAIRS, MINITATANGA MO NGA TANE

 This proposed legislation reaches a new low in the financial exploitation of men and also represents a giant backward step for women to a past patriarchal era in which men were held legally responsible for their spouses’ behaviour.

 A Domestic Purposes Benefit (DPB) fraudster commits an offence by signing a legal document affirming (s)he is not in a marriage-type relationship. The partner committed no offence but Chester Burrows wants to make the partner pay for the beneficiary’s offending even if that partner in no way encouraged it. Burrows’ law will only apply to the partners of DPB and ‘Sole Parent Support’ fraudsters not to other types of benefit fraud, and his public statements have made it clear this distinction is based on the gender of the beneficiaries concerned. The intention of the law is to make men pay for female offending.

 

Anyone know who's behind this group?

RNZ bias

If you ever wanted confirmation that Radio NZ, or Kathryn Ryan at least, is utterly biased listen to the difference in her treatment of the interviewed lawyer compared to the associate Minister for Social Development Chester Borrows here.

Prosecuting beneficiary partners

National's new law that will see partner's of beneficiaries prosecuted is a good step forward.

Most of the currently prosecuted fraud - after claiming while employed - is claiming the DPB while living in a marriage-type relationship.

Most DPB claimants are women so this change generally affects men though other situations will occur. Same-sex partnerships are now recognised in  the Social Security Act so a lesbian partner could also be prosecuted. And obviously the main beneficiary might be male.  Given there is provision for couples to live together and claim a benefit in their own right - albeit at a reduced rate - the government has every right to start cracking down on people who break the rules. Both of them.

Also this move should reduce the vulnerability that having a secure income and home creates for DPB recipients - especially young, low esteem, malleable types who are all too willing to let a male sponge off her.

It's no surprise that the Maori Party aren't supportive. It's my belief that this sort of living arrangement whereby one half of the couple brings in the DPB and the other has no income, draws a benefit or works, is more common amongst Maori. It might not reflect intent to defraud necessarily. But it does reflect more transient, haphazard living.

In any case there are probably thousands of people who already know their living arrangements are not legit (some because a protection order also forbids them from living under the same roof.) Now it's a matter of changed dynamics as the blame and punishment spreads.

Will it make a difference? These people - mainly men - are risk-takers anyway. They probably have unpaid fines, other debt, previous convictions, child support debt, are possibly unemployable, possibly ex-prisoners, gang members, drug dealers. Is the threat of a $5,000 fine or prison going to change this particular behaviour? I doubt it.

But it does give the female another tool though, if she wants shot of the guy. Perhaps National should go a step further and offer an amnesty to the claiming partner if the other refuses to move out during the period following the new law implementation.

Update: Something was niggling at the back of mind about the business of actually defining someone as a partner. I had forgotten that Work and Income must demonstrate that the beneficiary is in a relationship with the required "emotional commitment" and "financial interdependence" for the other person to be defined as a de facto partner.

"...when considering if a client is in a relationship and the client indicates they are a victim of domestic violence, extra care must be taken when determining if the required level of emotional commitment is present." Here we go again with bad incentives. If he hits her he won't be a 'partner' and he won't go to prison or pay a fine. Good lord. What a mess the benefit system is.

Justice and injustice

Just finished reading Liberty Scott's post featuring a case of carping, chronic entitlitis when I came across this:

Liberty means the security given to each man that, if he employs his energies to sustain the struggle on behalf of himself and those he cares for, he shall dispose of the product exclusively as he chooses. It is impossible to know whence any definition or criterion of justice can be derived, if it is not deduced from this view of things; or if it is not the definition of justice that each shall enjoy the fruit of his own labor and self-denial, and of injustice that the idle and the industrious, the self-indulgent and the self-denying, shall share equally in the product.
 

- William Graham Sumner, "Socialism" [1880s]

...and so it came to pass and this is what it looks like.

Child support and teen Dads

I'm writing a belated post about this article from Sunday because there seems to be some confusion over liability.

One rogue 19-year-old is a liable father to 13 kids to different mums.
A source has confirmed the man is named on the birth certificates of 13 children, and is liable to pay child support for them.
Figures released by the Inland Revenue Department show 943 teenage fathers were liable to pay child support at the end of last year. Some were just 15 years old, and already liable for two children.

If this liable teenage father does exist he will be assessed for 13 x $16.30 weekly, the minimum, or $$211.90 in total. With that kind of liability going on for the next 18 plus years he may well have skipped the country and become one of the many the Australian government are now trying to chase - or was that student loans?

In any discussion about the merits or otherwise of child support I inevitably come back to the DPB.

Couples will always split or divorce and courts have always ordered maintenance be paid by the father (or occasionally) mother of any dependent children. That's fair. That morphed into today's child support (around 1991-2). Some couples negotiate the payment privately. Some choose to involve the state and subsequently, there is a good deal of argument over whether the current assessment formula is fair.

But for those fathers supporting a child being raised on the DPB from birth, fathers who were never in an ongoing relationship with the mother; who were never told about the pregnancy, had no opportunity to discuss what to do about it; who may have been knowingly used to provide a child/meal ticket - I am very uncomfortable about their liability. Yes, they are responsible to a point but if the DPB didn't exist, the mothers wouldn't have been using them or making the decision which leads to their 18 year liability.  Let's put it another way. A female finds herself pregnant. She knows if she has the child she will get an income equivalent to the minimum age and a home. She can get it from the state on the condition (and even this is easy enough to get around) she names the father so he can pay some probably pathetic amount to the taxpayer. And it usually is a trifling amount because of the socio-economic group these children are generally produced from.

Get rid of this gaming and a good deal of the child support problems disappear.

(BTW I have no idea why, according to the article, "welfare workers were shocked". There are always a few thousand teenagers on the DPB at any given. It's not surprising at least some of the fathers of those children would be teen Dads. Throw in another known fact - male Sole-Maori identifiers are three and a half times more likely to have a partner pregnant by age twenty than non Maori - and none of this is surprising).

DPB trivia

Around 10,000 sole parents on the DPB have had children to more than one child-support paying partner. (There will be more who have failed to name the father).

This piece of information was contained in an answer to a written question from Jacinda Ardern to the Minister of Revenue.

Wonder why she kept it quiet?

The current minimum child support payment is $16.30 - a mere 3 percent of a typical weekly payment to a single parent with two children living in Auckland.

And the left don't even want that tiny amount to go towards offsetting the DPB bill.