Kiwis back basic benefit for all kids
Amiddle-aged man rode up to me in the supermarket car park on a bicycle recently and asked for money to help feed his six-year-old boy.
He said he hadn’t completed his benefit paperwork on time – and his payment had been halved for six weeks, right on Christmas. He sped off with the
$6 I had in cash to buy his son dinner, or so he said. Suffer the little children . . . While the Government seems satisfied to have a plan to halve child poverty in 10 years, a majority of New Zealanders want it eliminated in four.
The Child Poverty Monitoring group, including the Commissioner for Children, says ‘‘to move children out of poverty, New Zealand will need to boldly address systemic issues’’.
While the Government is creating a law requiring it to set child poverty targets and produce a child poverty reduction strategy, the monitoring group says the number of children suffering material hardship in povertystricken households is staying about the same.
At the time the Government decided to set child poverty reduction targets an estimated:
■ 290,000 children (those aged between 0 and 17) were living in households below the income poverty line.
■ 135,000 children were living in material hardship (going without seven or more things they need).
■ 80,000 were living in lowincome households and material hardship (going without things they need), and
■ 70,000 were in material hardship, going without nine or more things they need.
Last week’s latest Child Poverty Monitor report says more than 160,000 children are living in households without enough food or healthy food.
The Government aims to cut the number of children in poverty by 50,000 in its first term (by 2020) and by another 50,000 by the end of its second term (2023), if it is re-elected.
According to Cabinet papers, its 10-year target is to reduce the proportion of children in material hardship from between 13 per cent and 15 per cent now to 7 per cent.
Do New Zealanders think this is good enough? No.
Are there ways to help make a major dent in the suffering and lost opportunities we are visiting on our children? Yes.
Will voters for all parties back a big fix? Yes. Are we in danger of blowing an opportunity to ‘‘boldly address systemic issues’’? Let’s hope not.
Horizon Research polled New Zealanders four times between May 2017 and August 2018 on their attitudes to poverty – and potential policy fixes.
The results have been gifted to decision makers.
One possible answer is a basic income for children. From 1946 until 1991 New Zealand had the ‘‘Family Benefit’’, a universal unconditional payment for every child up to age 16.
In the 2017 Budget the Government partly reintroduced it with a $60-a-week payment for all children during the first year of life, called ‘‘Best Start’’. The payment can continue up to age 3, with income testing.
Paying a basic income of $60 a week for every child up to age 17 would cost about $3.8 billion a year. That equates to about 1 per cent of gross domestic product and compares with a total annual tax of $84b a year in the Government’s 2017 Budget.
Horizon asked New Zealanders if, in general, they would support or oppose a basic income payment of $60 a week being extended to all 1.22 million children living in New Zealand, from ages 0 up to 17.
Fifty-five per cent said ‘‘yes’’,
20 per cent ‘‘no’’, 19 per cent were neutral, and 8 per cent were not sure.
Support is widespread: 62 per cent of those in the households with incomes of more than
$200,000 a year support it (only 26 per cent of this group oppose). The annual household income at June 30, 2017, was $100,103; personal income was $49,475.
Among voters for the Labour, Green, NZ First and National parties at last year’s general election, more support than oppose a basic income for children.
Support and opposition by main party voters is: Green 73 per cent support/8 per cent oppose; Labour 70 per cent
support/7 per cent oppose; National 37 per cent support/25 per cent oppose (and a huge 25 per cent neutral with 8 per cent who don’t know); NZ First (one of its MPs is minister for children) 46 per cent support/24 per cent oppose (with 27 per cent neutral).
The door appears open politically for a basic income of
$60 per week for every child. Canada did in 2016, introducing the tax-free Canada Child Benefit (CCB) to help families meet the cost of raising children. This year the maximum annual benefit is
$6496 per child under 6 years and
$5481 per child aged 6 to 17. Horizon finds 38 per cent of adults think income inequality is a serious and widespread problem (just 6 per cent say it isn’t), 39 per cent think a basic income will reduce the broad and negative impact of poverty and 39 per cent think it will make families more stable.
Will a payment like this be ‘‘wasted’’? Horizon asked those who started receiving the universal Best Start $60-a-week payment after it started on July
1, 2018, and found they were spending it on:
■ Children’s needs: 51 per cent (including things like basic needs, food, clothes, healthcare and nappies).
■ Household bills: 47 per cent (including food, bedding and electricity).
■ Accommodation costs: 39 per cent (mortgages, rents and rent rises).
■ Repaying loans: 34 per cent. So, recipients were effectively targeting the use of a universal payment.
Rather than ask only about the proposed reduction rate in child poverty, Horizon asked when it should be ‘‘eliminated’’.
Overall, the average preferred time to eliminate it is 4.4 years. Green and Labour voters want
3.8 and 3.7 years respectively. Voters for all parties in Parliament want it dealt with in
5.3 years or sooner. Therein lies a major opportunity to ‘‘boldly address systemic issues’’.
It is perhaps an opportunity for all parties to lead. Their voters won’t dislike them for it. The country will be thankful to give all of its children the chance to be better fed and educated, healthier, happier and able to make the most of their lives. And maybe fathers of 6-year-olds won’t have to beg.
Graeme Colman is principal at Horizon Research, which undertakes quantitative and qualitative research.