Summarised by Centrist
The government has declined to invest $3b annually to meet Labour’s target of reducing child poverty to 6% by 2028, with Minister Louise Upston stating that the approach, including benefit increases, is too costly.
Instead the government is advocating for economic growth and tax cuts to combat poverty.
An April Treasury briefing stated that Labour’s targets of 9% by 2024 were “unrealistically achievable”. The latest data shows 12.5% of children living in material hardship.
Citing economic realities, Upston has revised this target to 11% for 2027.
According to Upston, the last government “left office with a growing number of families trapped by long-term welfare dependency, a growing number of children living in benefit-dependent homes, and low-to-middle income New Zealanders falling further behind due to the cost-of-living crisis that resulted from their economic mismanagement.”
In 2018, the Labour/NZ First Government set child poverty reduction targets focused on “material hardship.” The goal was to reduce hardship to 10% by 2021, 9% by 2024, and 6% by 2028.
