Modelling suggests Māori and Pasifika children were 2.5 to 3 times to have been pushed into poverty after lockdown. Photo / 123rf
Modelling suggests Māori and Pasifika children were 2.5 to 3 times to have been pushed into poverty after lockdown. Photo / 123rf
An estimated 18,000 children have been pushed into poverty since the first lockdown, with Māori and Pasifika bearing the brunt.
That's according to modelling in a report from Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), which argues children did not get the attention needed from Government through 2020.
"This increase in child poverty of around 10 per cent comes at a time when property owners have seen their wealth rise at an accelerated rate," said report co-author and CPAG researcher McAllister.
"Loss of income related to job loss was probably inevitable for many families; but loss of income to the point of inadequacy - or further inadequacy - was due to political decision-making.
"The Government avoided one massive health and economic crisis but it enabled another one - that of poverty, homelessness and inequality - to grow rapidly.
"It is thanks to the collective efforts of iwi, hapū, community organisations, schools, whānau and families - and low-income children themselves - that the crisis of poverty was not even worse."
The increase in child poverty of 18,000 is based on the "50 per cent of Before Housing Costs median income moving" indicator, one of the Government's three primary target indicators.
The modelling also suggests Māori and Pacific children were around 2.5 to 3 times more likely than Pākehā children to have been pushed into poverty in the 12 months after the initial lockdown, which started in March 2020.
Changes in youth homelessness and chronic absences for low-income students were also worse for Māori and Pacific people than for Pākehā.
Child poverty in New Zealand has increased significantly since the first 2020 Covid-19 lockdown, a new report says. Photo / 123rf
McAllister said whānau Māori and Pacific families bore many of the heaviest burdens in hard times and it was the responsibility of decision-makers to deliberately and actively avoid that.
Māori and Pacific applicants were much less likely than Pākehā to be awarded the relatively generous Covid-19 Income Relief Payment, partially due to its design, McAllister said.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, also Minister for Child Poverty Reduction, said the Government knew the economic impact of Covid-19 could affect low-income earners the hardest - and acted to avoid that from happening.
Those actions included increasing benefits by $25 a week in 2020 and increasing them up to $55 a week in this year's Budget, rent freeze during lockdown, expanding the number of state houses to be built to 18,000, extending the food in schools programme and reintroducing the training incentive allowance.
Ardern said: "109,000 families and whānau with children will be, on average, $175 a week better off as a result of all the changes to income support the Government has made since 2017."
By the Government's official measure, 43,000 children had been lifted out of poverty on the after-housing cost measure.
"We know there is more to do and we remain committed to making New Zealand the best place in the world to be a child," Ardern said.
Children's Commissioner Andrew Becroft said the report's findings didn't come as a surprise.
"We already knew Māori, Pasifika and disabled children were disproportionately affected by poverty. We were concerned and suspected it would be worse for Māori, Pasifika and disabled children during Covid. This report appears to confirm those suspicions."
Becroft said he recognised what the Government had done at the time of Covid in providing specific support to families doing it tough, but Covid-19 couldn't be an excuse for doing less.
He wanted to see more done in housing, including introducing mechanisms to constrain rent increases, and to ensure, as an "urgent priority", more social housing available.
More support for wrap-around community services was needed to connect those who were struggling with those in local communities who were helping, he said.
"We know those groups up and down the country. Those groups need more help - and particularly by Māori for Māori approaches need to be encouraged.
"I want the Government to do more of what they were doing prior to Covid and treat Covid as the rationale or reason for doing more, not an excuse for taking the foot off the accelerator."
The Government's annual child poverty statistics released in February showed while the Government was on track to meet two out of three of its child poverty reduction targets, those gains were being unequally felt across ethnicities.
The figures also did not include the Covid-19 lockdown months because the Ministry of Health did not want officials undertaking face-to-face interviews, given the Covid-19 risks.
