(Advanced) Child Poverty in NZ

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median
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low-income households
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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has released short-term goals to reduce the numbers of children living in poverty by 70,000 over three years – but says changes being made to the way child poverty is measured is likely to see numbers increase before they go down.

Ardern released the Government's three-year targets for reducing child poverty, including a goal to reduce the number of children in _________ by about 30,000 and to reduce those living in ___________ (less than half the ________) by 6 per cent – about 70,000 children.

Ardern said the long-term 10-year goal of more than halving child poverty was ambitious and if achieved would make New Zealand among the lowest in world.

The new three-year targets were more than what was required to hit the 10-year target.

However, she said setting the targets had highlighted problems in the way poverty was measured.

Poverty measures were based on the Household Incomes Survey but Ardern said she was advised those numbers were not accurate because the sample sizes were too small and underestimated the numbers of _________.

That meant the data Treasury used to estimate the impact of policies was "a bit ropy".

"So my __________ is poverty numbers will get worse before they get better because we are going to do a larger _________ next time round."

The three-year targets are:

• 70,000 fewer children living in low-income households before housing costs are included (a 6 per cent drop)

• 40,000 fewer children in low-income households after housing costs are included (a 4 per cent drop)

• 30,000 fewer children living in material hardship (without basics, healthy food etc) (a 3 per cent drop)

Low-income households are those on less than half the median income.