The Child Poverty Action Group is alarmed at a new report published by the Ministry of Social Development that shows that in 2008 one in six New Zealand children lived in a household below the very lowest poverty lines. After allowing for housing costs, the percentage of children in households with incomes below 60% of the median is 28%.

This is likely a result of increasing unemployment in 2008- which has reached even higher levels this year. For the working poor, New Zealand’s minimum wage remains bellow half the median wage. The Council of Trade Unions has lobbied the government to raise it to two thirds, and the Unite union is currently campaigning to achieve this by a citizen initiated referendum.

The Child Poverty Action Group is calling on the government to raise the amount of money people on welfare benefits can earn from $80 a week to $150. The group also raised concern about Working For Families, a programme introduced by the previous government that gives tax credits to working parents. While noting that without Working For Families the number of children in poverty would have been even higher, this tax credit is not available for beneficiaries, including those who have recently been made redundant. “children’s needs do not change when the breadwinner loses their job,” noted economics spokesperson Dr Susan St John.

More disturbingly, the report shows that beneficiary families with children who missed out on the In-Work Tax Credit are being left even further behind. These figures will look even worse once they are updated to include the effects of the hundreds of jobs that have vanished since late last year, and the impact of tax cuts, which gave little or nothing to very low income earners and beneficiary families.