The Government recognised in last week's Budget that the gap between market and benefit incomes has become too wide.

Child poverty figures can be hard to believe. The very word poverty hardly seems appropriate for a country with New Zealand's welfare net.

Could business have expected more from a Budget labelled by Finance Minister Bill English as "a plan that's working"?

After some confusion about Whanau Ora, Dita De Boni visited a provider to better understand the initiative.

Finance Minister Bill English says there will be no new initiatives to address poverty in tomorrow's Budget New Zealand - despite the Prime Minister suggesting otherwise last month.

The petition comes as the Salvation Army said it fed 9.5 per cent more people last year in its Midland region than it did in the year before.

The house where Freddie Gray's life changed forever sits at the end of a long line of abandoned row homes in one of this city's poorest neighbourhoods.

Returning home to New Zealand after more than 10 years away I find a country both hearteningly buoyant and unsettlingly fragile. Let me explain - the view of one returning son.

An 8-year-old Manurewa boy is one of 11,000 disabled children to lose a welfare benefit, even though his asthma is so bad that he missed one in every four school days.

With more children coming to school hungry, a scientific study will for the first time guage the impact nutrition — or lack of it — has on learning.

There's growing economic segregation across the USA - wealth is concentrating in areas just as poverty does.

The Salvation Army has delivered a report on the state of the nation, revealing housing is a major issue that needs to be addressed.

Prime Minister John Key has announced a review of the ways the Government spends billions on vulnerable families and children ahead of the Budget in May.

Combined wealth of world's richest 1 per cent will overtake that of remaining 99 per cent by 2016 unless action taken to curb "shocking extremes" of inequality.

Thirty years ago, NZ was a much more equal society. It could be so again. But it will take a huge shift in the mindset of the majority. Changing this state of affairs is a moral challenge to us all.

A French mayor has been accused of a shameful lack of Christmas spirit after banishing homeless people from the city centre by putting cages over public benches.

As I turned on to the corner of Hobson St, I froze. About 200 people were standing on the pavement. It was the queue to get into the City Mission.

The latest figures show nearly one quarter of our 1.1 million children under 18 live in households with very low incomes after housing costs.

Asian youngsters are now more likely to suffer overcrowding and poverty-related illnesses than European children, a report has found.

As a Melburnian born in NZ, I cannot leave readers misinformed after Dita de Boni's article "The yawning rich-poor Oz divide" (Nov 13).

A trip to the beach is among treasured items Barnados New Zealand wants to provide needy kids with this summer.

Certainly New Zealand offers a lot less than Australia in many ways, but at least we can still have the conversation about inequality, writes Dita De Boni.

Mukul Resort provides classes for employees, plus health care, portable water and a soccer academy for the local community.

The Prime Minister recently made two announcements which appear worlds away but are intrinsically linked: making child poverty his priority this term, and attracting skilled people to New Zealand to enable continued economic growth.

The number of billionaires has doubled since the start of the financial crisis, according to a report from anti-poverty campaigners.

Child poverty rates in New Zealand are "stagnating", having barely changed since 2008, an international report by UNICEF says.