Study baffles

Growing up in New Zealand (GuiNZ) is an Auckland University study described as:

"Growing Up in New Zealand is the country’s largest, and most ethnically and economically diverse, longitudinal study as it follows 7,000 children and their families, recruited from across the greater Auckland and the Waikato regions, as they grow up in contemporary New Zealand."

The children were mainly born in 2009. Researchers interviewed mother in the antenatal period; when the child was 9 months and then when the child was 2.

This is the household structure at 2 years.



I find this very odd. It is certainly not nationally representative of sole parent families.

MSD research into sole parenting shows:

 

And consistent with that is data from the Child Health Monitor  produced by the University of Otago.

The graph below shows the percentage and age of children reliant on benefits at June 2013. There is little change from prior years.

Figure 2. Proportion of All Children Aged 0–17 Years who were Reliant on a Benefit Recipient by Age and Benefit Type, New Zealand June 2013





Back to the household structure of the cohort, one explanation may be that a high number of sole parents live in the 'parent(s)' with extended family' households.

Yet according to the Household Incomes Survey

"Around one in three SP families (EFUs) live in households with other adults." (p156)

That would push the 5 percent  sole parent households up to 7.5% sole parent families.

Still well below national figures.

These are the absolute numbers for sole mother households:

 

 Yet when compared to the numbers receiving an income-tested benefit they also seem too low.


 

These percentages are  closer to those measuring young benefit-dependent children across the population (approx 24 percent). Some of the shortfall might be explained by recruit drop-out.

There is no benefit breakdown information in the 2 year report and it occurred to me to request the raw data but guess how much that would cost? About $3,800.00

 So what have we got?

15.9 percent of the study children living on benefit income at 2 years but only 5% in single parent households.

Yet the vast majority of children on welfare rely on the DPB (refer back to Child Health monitor above).

The only conclusion I can draw is that in the recruitment area - Auckland, Counties Manukau, Waikato - unusually high numbers of sole parents live in extended households.

The study claims, "The Growing up in New Zealand cohort is broadly generalisable to the curent New Zealand population..."

Is it? I have been looking at the numbers too long. Am I missing something obvious?


There is another interesting implication here.

Sole parents who live in extended households have a much lower poverty rate than those who live in  separately - only 23 percent versus 69% (Household Incomes Survey).

And let's not forget corporate welfare...

Just in from the Taxpayer's Union:

• Since National took office, corporate welfare has cost taxpayers $1-1.4 billion ($600 - $800 per household) per year
• If corporate welfare was abolished, enough money would be saved to reduce the corporate tax rate from 28% to 22.5%
• If applied to personal income tax rates, the saving would allow the 30% and 33% income tax rates to be lowered to 29%
• Alternatively, the 10.5% rate (applicable to the first $14,000 of income) could be reduced to 7%.

Report can be  downloaded as a .pdf.

The land of the less free

The Cato Institute reports:

There was a time, not so long ago, when the United States was considered the world standard for economic freedom. Yes, there were countries out there, like Hong Kong and Singapore, that might have had lower taxes or fewer regulations. But the world could still speak confidently of the American free-enterprise system. No longer.
This week, a consortium of think tanks from almost 90 countries released their Economic Freedom of the World Report. The United States is no longer among the top ten countries when it comes to size of government, rule of law and property rights, soundness of the money supply, regulation, and free trade. We now rank twelfth, down from second as recently as 2000. For the record, we now trail Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, Mauritius, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Australia, Jordan, Chile, and Finland.

More

NZ Table here

Note our poor 'size of government' rating - ranked 89th

Quote of the day

From the Future of Freedom Foundation, today's quote:

A zoo is a welfare economy, and the zoo animals are privileged — and enslaved — animals.
 

- R.J. Rushdoony

Education and income inequality

A reader drew my attention to an article in the WSJ about educational achievement being both a driver and outcome of income inequality.

It appears there are plans to make the tests 'fairer' but the reasoning seems dubious.The writer concludes:

Family wealth allows parents to locate in neighborhoods with better schools (or spring for private schools). Parents who are themselves college educated tend to make more money, and since today’s high school seniors were born in the mid-1990s, many of the wealthiest and best-educated parents themselves came of age when the tests were of crucial importance. When the SAT is crucial to college, college is crucial to income, and income is crucial to SAT scores, a mutually reinforcing cycle develops.

And a similar pattern is replicated here. I extracted the following from the latest NZ Income Survey.

It shows the personal weekly income by estimated number in eligible population (000). Generally, the higher the educational qualification, the higher the personal income.

Highest qualification(7)	$1,190 & over	Under $210
No qualification	55.7	178.8
Lower secondary school qualification	40.2	83.1
Upper secondary school qualification	61.9	204.9
School qualification not specified	S	3.1
Level 1-3 certificate post-school	10.4	18.1
Level 4-7 certificate or diploma	184.9	79.7
Bachelor's degree (incl Honours)	191.2	73.8
Postgraduate qualification	117.6	25.8
Other post-school	33.0	28.3
Post-school not specified	6.3	5.2
Total(5)	706.6	706.7

(The seemingly anomalous figure in the second column is probably influenced by working-age females not in the workforce eg stay-at-home mums. Data comprises all individuals aged 15 and over)

The real value of today's benefit compared to pre-1991 benefit cuts

In search of a child poverty scapegoat, much is made of  the comparative value of today's benefits to those pre-1991 cuts.

In 1989 the maximum DPB payment for a sole parent and two children (incl. accommodation benefit and family benefit) was $332.87 weekly.

In 2014 the equivalent sum was $680.45

The following table shows various expenditures as  percentages of those payments:
 

	1989	% benefit	2014	%  benefit
litre milk*	$1.23	0.37	$1.79	0.26
rent weekly average 3 bd house	160	48	360	53
bread*	1.65	0.5	1.1	0.16
men's shirt	55	17	50	7.3
petrol 10L	9.12	2.7	21.6	3.2
haircut (women's wet)	27.58	8.3	63	9.3
TV colour 53-65cm	1479	444	279	41
toilet paper 2-ply (4 rolls)	2.79	0.84	3	0.4
eggs (dozen)*	2.6	0.78	3.69	0.54
Fridge/freezer .32 cu mm	1187	357	479	70
*2014 - based on the cheapest available brand or variety in each retail outlet at the time of price collection.
http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/economic_indicators/CPI_inflation/haircuts.aspx
http://www.aa.co.nz/cars/maintenance/fuel-prices-and-types/petrolwatch-weekly-and-monthly-updates/petrolwatch/march-2014-petrol-and-diesel-prices/
http://www.enz.org/house-rents-in-new-zealand.html
http://www.hallensteins.com/category/Mens-Shirts?i=13
http://www.thewarehouse.co.nz/red/catalog/electronics/visual/televisions
http://www.thewarehouse.co.nz/red/catalog/everyday-needs/toilet-tissue

Proportionately, low-cost groceries and clothing are lower.

TVs and whiteware are massively lower.

Petrol is higher.

Rent is also higher but only 5 percentage points ahead of 1989.

ODT: 100 years ago

Table DP.2: Numbers granted a Domestic Purposes Benefit

Client age when benefit granted	Grants of a Domestic Purposes Benefit
	2007/2008	2008/2009	2009/2010	2010/2011	2011/2012
Benefits granted to working-age clients	36,494	41,811	40,616	38,072	36,258
Benefits granted to other clients	1,054	1,100	942	799	751
Total benefits granted	37,548	42,911	41,558	38,871	37,009

The annual grants above would be mainly to mothers who have lost the support of a partner or never had one. Some would be to 'deserted wives'. I note this to contrast a report in the ODT from 100 years ago:

The problem of the deserted wife is causing the Auckland Charitable Aid Board just now to think over the defects of legislation in this respect. The army of wives seeking fugitive husbands is assuming such alarming proportions that recently there have been exceptional calls upon the resources of the Charitable Aid Committee by those unfortunate women who have been left by their callous husbands with the burden of a family upon their hands. Recently there were no fewer than seven such applications before the committee, which felt so strongly on the subject that it passed a resolution recommending the board to draw the attention of the Government to the increasing number of cases of wife desertion, and urging it to instruct the police to bring the deserters back.

Seven!

This is definitely not a contender for, The more things change...

The investment approach

As Bennett leaves social development there is a bit of hoopla about the investment approach and what else she might achieve across other departments. She is viewed as a great success and in some ways I think that's correct. But you'd want to see the numbers really starting to improve from here on in.





Although the numbers are dropping slowly in both absolute terms and as a share of the working age population, that demographic is shrinking relative to the 65+ age band. Here the recipient numbers continue to climb steadily (Call Super whatever you want but it comes out of the MSD budget and is a cost to govt/taxpayer.)

The investment approach to working-age welfare meant spending more on those who would cost more over their 'working' lifetime, aiming to reduce their dependency.

I wonder how the investment approach would work with Super? It can hardly be identifying those who will be on Super longest and investing more to prevent this from happening.

An investment approach to Super would be to keep people working, productive and paying taxes for longer. Oh, but that's Labour policy.

Craven Key

Talking on RadioNZ about the new cabinet line-up, the PM utterly pisses me off. To think I voted for this rubbish,

Mr Key said the portfolio titles themselves are not immune to change.
"Like if you take Women's Affairs for instance, I just think that's a very outdated term - it's probably 50 or 60 years old as a name for that portfolio. There is a role for a ministry there, but it will be called the Ministry for Women, I just think that's a better reflective title."

It isn't just the name that is outdated, it's the very concept.

Women make up almost half the workforce; are out-performing males in tertiary achievement and numbers; and are free from legal discrimination. Enough of  the privilege and  patronization.

It's got a budget of  $4.5 million spending $3.1 million on personnel. It is staffed with highly paid career bureaucrats advising other highly paid career bureaucrats.

There is no ministry for men and neither should there be. It's an anachronism that nobody has the courage to abolish.

Changing the name won't stop it being an anachronism. It'll just waste even more taxpayers money.

70 years ago - The downfall of Sir Apirana Ngata

Sir Apirana Ngata was a highly practical man who harnessed the resources of the state to develop Maori land; to get his people working and productive. But Pakeha weren't always happy with the flow of money going into his schemes. It's shame they didn't have a glass ball enabling them to see the future flow of money going into making Maori unproductive.

It was Alan Duff, in Maori:The Crisis and the Challenge, who highlighted Ngata's fierce opposition to Maori receiving welfare (then social security) fearing its corrupting affect on his people.

The following piece is from the NZ Herald 70 years ago today but I hesitated to categorise it under "The more things change..." firstly because the tone of the debate is exceptionally civil, quite unlike today. And I didn't want to give the impression that I thought Ngata was comparable with a few contemporary Maori who self-interestedly rip of government grants.

 More

If you read that piece you will be interested in what happened next:

"By the beginning of 1932 Ngata and his department were being roundly criticised in Parliament and the press. He was required to accept a reorganisation of his head office, but the controller and auditor general refused to pass the accounts. Irregularities were found in some of the district offices of the department. A civil servant from the office of the public service commissioner was put into the head office in place of R. N. Jones, who was both chief judge of the Native Land Court and under-secretary for the department. But the crisis was not yet over, and one of Ngata's trusted lieutenants on the East Coast was found to have falsified accounts. Ngata offered his resignation, but instead of accepting it George Forbes, the prime minister, adopted a recommendation from the Public Accounts Committee to appoint a commission of inquiry into Ngata's handling of his department and the land development schemes. It reported in 1934 and was critical of Ngata's administration, especially his personal style and contempt for bureaucratic regulations, alleged that he favoured his tribe, Ngati Porou, and his family (although providing little evidence to support either allegation), and pointed, correctly, to the corruption of some of Ngata's subordinates. Ngata honourably accepted responsibility for the shortcomings and immediately resigned from cabinet. His downfall had a powerful impact on Maoridom, which regarded it as a Pakeha attempt to undermine the success of his land schemes."

The more things change...October 5, 2014

Welfare is cyclical.

Governments institute programmes of cash or in-kind assistance which over time - usually due to over-subscription -  become unaffordable.

Source: NZ Herald, October 5, 1934

The scheme ended in 1967 on account of cost.

The experiment will be repeated though, except this time the calls are for breakfast and lunch as well...despite low and middle income families already receiving specific payments to assist with the cost of raising children.

Who'd be a single parent?

The Families Commission produced some research which compared one parent families with three other family types: two parent families, younger couples without children and older couples without children.

The following is a summary of what they discovered about one parent families:
 

› less likely to have felt satisfied with their life as a whole (77.8 percent)
› generally less likely to have felt calm and peaceful (66 percent)
› nearly a third were regular smokers (31.3 percent)
› fewer felt safe walking alone at night in their neighbourhood (55.7 percent)
› relatively high participation in study or training (32.3 percent)
› less than one-quarter hold a post-secondary school qualification (23.1 percent)
› less likely to be satisfied with their knowledge, skills and attitude (79.5 percent)
› significantly less likely to have an annual household income of greater than $70,000 (23.6 percent)
› much less likely to be involved in paid employment (46.7 percent)
› consistently less likely to be satisfied with their standard of living (64.3 percent)
› among the least likely to do voluntary work for a group or organisation (22.7 percent)

Today, thirty percent of all families with children are single parent families. This high proportion is the product of forty years of state subsidisation.

Any young person looking at the four groups, asked to choose which they would like to belong to 'when they grow up', is going to avoid the one-parent group.

It isn't 'compassionate' to continue encouraging the single parent lifestyle. It isn't kind to the mothers or their children. Any reasonable efforts to reverse the trend should be supported without question.

"There is no 'right' to help yourself to the taxes of others"

Each Friday I receive weekly e-mail newsletters from two think-tanks: The NZ Initiative and Centre for Independent Studies, Australia. Two offerings seem to dovetail this week and showed NZ in a more progressive (literal use of the word) light. Australians are impressed that John Key has persuaded NZ to accept welfare obligations (by token of his re-election) whereas their bureacrats continue to fight.

John Key, the incremental radical

Jenesa Jeram | Research Assistant | jenesa.jeram@nzinitiative.org.nz

They say the grass is always greener on the other side; for New Zealanders looking to Australia, it often rings true. The sun seems to shine a bit brighter there, the pay packets are a bit fatter, and they have koalas. But times are changing. The decline in long-term migration figures to Australia is just one example. And the reason is simple: Australia may have cuddly koalas, but New Zealand has John Key. When I attended a conference in Sydney last week, I was struck by the Australians’ enthusiasm for anything New Zealand in general and our re-elected government in particular. What surprised them was John Key’s apparent ability to get the public on board with his “radical” reform agenda. Radical? Really? At least on our side of the Tasman, Key hardly ever gets described in such ways. And indeed, at first glance, not a lot has changed since Key first took office. National has preserved traditional Labour policies such as state-funded education and health care, Working for Families tax credits, interest-free student loans and KiwiSaver. And as long as Key remains in office, superannuation reform is off the table. But this seeming stability obscures some changes that are indeed quite radical. Increasing GST and reducing income tax was no small feat. Nor are charter schools, asset sales, loss of lifetime tenure for state houses, and increased obligations for beneficiaries. As the Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Hartcher put it, John Key “has coaxed his country into swallowing the pills of reform yet entrusting him with power once again.” So here’s the paradox: Key’s government looks reformist from a distance but his policies do not appear to be particularly bold when looked at in New Zealand. The question is, how does Key manage the kind of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reforms, whilst implementing some truly substantial changes to New Zealand’s policy landscape? The answer to this conundrum is that Key exemplifies the art of what one might call “radical incrementalism”. Key has a good sense for the electorate’s appetite for change. The public has to be on board– and reforms take time, patience and good explanation. That’s the real story other countries can take out of Key’s incremental radicalism. It’s not about tricking your patients into swallowing the pills, or promising false cures that won’t deliver results. It’s about educating the public on why these pills are necessary to build a strong, healthy economy. And hopefully, in time, the electorate will start demanding the pills themselves, with the knowledge a thriving economy transforms lives and living standards.

There is no 'right' to help yourself to the taxes of others

This week a parliamentary committee accused the Abbott Government of violating international human rights obligations because it wants to limit the hand out of tax-payer funded welfare benefits.

Welfare changes included in the May Budget set tough conditions for the payment of unemployment benefits to people under the age of 30. Failure to meet those conditions by hopeful recipients would mean no social security payments for six months.

But the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, set up under the

Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011 ruled that the measure was "incompatible with the right to social security".

The so-called "right to social security" is set out in Article 9 of the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights created in 1966. The Australian government signed up to the ICESCR in 1975, thereby committing to an endless, expanding provision of welfare benefits.

Today, many on the Left affirm the ICESCR provision on social security because of their commitment to alleviating suffering and need. Others on the Right are skeptical because of growing public expenditure, a rising tax-burden, and the erosion of incentives to obtain employment.  

But the reality is that human rights - as defined by the Covenant and applied by the Parliamentary Committee in relation to welfare - is a corruption of the true meaning of the term. There is no such thing as a human right to free-flowing and unrestricted welfare.

Human rights, as properly understood, grant individuals specific and important freedoms so that they can pursue their own life and well-being. These rights include the right to the freedoms of speech, religion, and conscience, as well as important rights such as the right not to be enslaved or tortured.

This is to say that human rights are intended to stop governments from acting at the expense of the well-being of its citizens. They create a space for freedom to live under the rule of law. In other words, human rights stop governments from interfering in our lives.

The problem with the 'right' to social security is that it sets out to alleviate a burden borne by some individuals by imposing a duty or obligation on other individuals. It is therefore not a right at all. The parliamentary committee's report criticizing the government for doing what it was elected to do is nonsense. The right to help yourself to the taxes of other people is no right at all.

Peter Kurti is a Research Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies.

" ...breathing new life into te reo"

A report was published yesterday by Statistics NZ. According to the media release:

Kōhanga reo and kura kaupapa breathing new life into te reo – media release

Half of Māori who have ever been enrolled in both kōhanga reo and kura kaupapa can speak te reo Māori well or very well, Statistics New Zealand said today.

This surprised me because I thought te reo speakers weren't increasing in number.

The 2001 census showed around 28.2 percent of the Maori population are te reo speakers.

By 2013 the percentage had dropped to around 23.7%.

The above statement though is based on a different data source, Te Kupenga. Amongst the younger groups the survey responses exceed the census. The reverse applies amongst the older age groups.



On the differences:

Respondents report different answers in different surveys

Alignment between responses from the 2013 Census and Te Kupenga, and the 2001 Census and the 2001 HMLS is not perfect. For example, 16.1 percent (4,000) of Māori who reported speaking te reo Māori very well in Te Kupenga had stated in the 2013 Census that they could not hold a conversation about a lot of everyday things in te reo Māori. At the other end of the scale, 4.1 percent (9,500) of Māori who reported speaking no more than a few words or phrases of te reo in Te Kupenga had stated in the 2013 Census that they could hold a conversation in Māori.

Here's another table with census age breakdown and raw numbers:


Table 1
Ability to hold a conversation about everyday things in te reo Māori, by age group
For the Māori ethnic group census usually resident population count aged 15 years and over
2001 and 2013 Censuses

Age group (years)	Number of Māori with conversational ability in te reo Māori		Māori population		Proportion of Māori population with conversational ability in te reo Māori(1) (percent)
	2001	2013	2001	2013	2001	2013
15–24	22,164	21,039	91,623	106,998	24.5	20.0
25–34	18,300	16,011	79,413	71,394	23.4	22.7
35–44	17,595	15,849	71,181	73,545	25.0	21.8
45–54	13,407	15,495	44,568	67,878	30.4	23.2
55+	20,343	23,997	43,014	76,467	48.1	31.9
Total	91,809	92,391	329,796	396,285	28.2	23.7
1. These proportions exclude responses that cannot be classified (eg ‘not stated’, ‘response unidentifiable’, and ‘response out of scope’). Source: Statistics New Zealand Draw your own conclusions. But I think the headline we started with is perhaps optimistic.

The more things change...October 3, 2014

Advocating for an increase in population, the correspondent beneath wants the responsibility of parenthood to lie with the whole community:

Source: NZ Herald, October 3, 1944

Bar the abortion advice, plenty of parallels with today's advocacy and practise.

Funny thing is, the greater responsibility the 'community' has assumed, the smaller families have become.

The more things change...October 2, 2014

The more things change, the more they stay the same. The truth of that becomes increasingly obvious the longer one lives. Many issues are perennial.

From time to time I enjoy a trawl through an old newspaper. Many are now available on-line. So I thought I'd start a new posting habit of demonstrating the above maxim.

At Papers Past  historic newspapers  up to 1946 are available. So I chose a revisit date of 70 years ago today.

Maybe it'll be daily.

Here's my first offering.

Housing waiting lists are never out of the news and make excellent political fodder.

Currently there are 5,840 applications awaiting fulfilment nationally.

Here's the situation 60 years ago. Post-war perhaps but a large majority of those waiting were "civilians":

NZ Herald, October 2, 1944

Build them and they will come.

Why Cunliffe is so out of touch

A quote from Stuff today:

It is important to me that I leave my personal brand, which is reasonably statesman-like, and I'm not into any form of gutter politics.

Never, ever describe yourself as "statesman-like." It isn't a matter of veracity. It's a matter of humility. He has none.

Will Mallard hold my electorate?

I have been musing since election day that while I might have 'wasted' my party vote on ACT it was an acknowledged gamble. My electorate vote might yet prove useful if Trevor Mallard ends up losing the seat.

While I gambled with my votes,  2693 other voters simply threw theirs straight down the dunnie by giving their electorate vote to Green candidate Holly Walker who had stated prior to the election SHE  WOULD NOT RETURN TO PARLIAMENT. What were they thinking? Were they thinking? I am assuming that most were two ticks Green voters wanting a change of government. In which case, surely the best option was to split their votes between the Greens and Labour? Had more of them voted tactically Mallard wouldn't now be sitting on a knife edge.

Waiting on the specials he must be reflecting that the traditionally high overseas Green vote may also follow this pattern - no tick for him. Then by nature of the economic bias towards the more prosperous being more likely to vote National, and the more prosperous likely to be travelling or reside internationally, his prospects dwindle further (that's not to say some National voters won't have given centrist and slighty conservative Mallard their candidate vote.)

According to this news report:

It was a nail-biting night for Trevor Mallard, but he's holding on to his Hutt South seat for now.
The Labour veteran is ahead of National's Chris Bishop by just a few hundred votes, with more than 3000 special votes still to be counted.

378 to be precise.