More people need top-up to survive on welfare cash

The number of people getting extra support from Work and Income has jumped by a third as New Zealanders struggle with recession and rising living costs.

Figures obtained by the Council of Christian Social Services show that the numbers receiving either "temporary additional support" or "special benefit" jumped from 40,748 in the first quarter of last year to 54,389 in the same period this year.

Both kinds of help are for people who can't meet ongoing commitments on their homes, cars and other specified items even after accessing all other entitlements such as main benefits and accommodation allowances. As a proportion of working-aged people on main benefits, those getting extra help rose from 15.9 per cent to 18.8 per cent.

Wellington People's Centre benefit rights co-ordinator Kay Brereton said many of those seeking extra help could not keep up payments on loans and mortgages after losing their jobs.

"Others are simply facing harder economic times - things like increases in power and petrol, most of which doesn't get covered in temporary additional support but some of the flow-on costs sometimes can," she said.

The Council of Christian Social Services, which requested the figures under the Official Information Act for the first of what it says will be quarterly "vulnerability reports" on social indicators, said it expected even more dramatic increases in extra benefits in its next report.

"We remain concerned about families with children and young people," said council executive officer Trevor McGlinchey.

"There is beginning to be a rise in the numbers of children dependent on benefits - not a huge increase, but it's something we need to be aware of.

"We know that when children are brought up in poverty, the long-term impacts on us as a country and on them as individuals are huge.

"One would hope that the Government begins to focus on how children in benefit-dependent families are supported. There is the Working for Families in-work tax credit for those who are fortunate enough to fit the criteria, but in a situation where more people are becoming unemployed we need to be looking at how we support the children in those families."

Extra help for people on main benefits was paid solely in the form of special benefits until 2006. In that year the Labour Government closed off new applications for special benefit and replaced it with the more restrictive "temporary additional support" (TAS), which is paid only for three months at a time, but can be renewed.

TAS is capped at a maximum of 30 per cent of the relevant main benefit. For a couple on unemployment benefit, that is $95.19 a week.

Ms Brereton said she was concerned that some people were being told they had to go on to TAS even though they were still entitled to go back on to the special benefit if they had been receiving it in 2006 and went off it for less than eight weeks - or for less than six months if they were working.

But she gave Work and Income credit for actively ringing clients who were entitled to TAS but were not receiving it.

"That is something we couldn't get them to do with special benefit ..."

The report shows that, although Maori make up only 15 per cent of the population, in March they accounted for 23 per cent of those still getting special benefits and 29 per cent of those with TAS. Maori also accounted for 45 per cent of the 115,000 people who received one-off special needs grants for food in the March quarter and 47 per cent of advance benefit payments to pay power, gas and water bills.