Researcher: Give families $200 a week
Mum-of-one Kristen Rupapera says an extra $200 a week would be a welcome boost to her family’s budget.
She works part time, and her partner works fulltime on a dairy farm. Money is tight but they get by.
‘‘An extra $200 a week would mean we could do more with [daughter] Jaymie,’’ she said. ‘‘It could pay for swimming and dance classes, as well giving us extra money to be able to take her out more.
‘‘If families have a low income then even a simple trip to the beach may have to be planned for.’’
If the researcher behind a new book got her way, Rupapera would be in luck.
Morgan Foundation science researcher Jess Berentson-Shaw has coauthored a book, Pennies from Heaven, with economist Gareth Morgan, which puts the case for a no-questions-asked $200-a-week benefit for all parents with a child under three.
Berentson-Shaw said more than half of New Zealand families suffered at least a year of income poverty after having a child. Poorer children were more likely to be victims of crime, drop out of school, suffer abuse and have their own babies younger.
Pennies from Heaven argues that cash without strings is the best way to help those families, and cites international studies that show lifting families out of poverty could halve the outcome gap between children in poverty and others.
Berentson-Shaw said the ‘‘thriving child’’ universal basic income of $200 a week would cost about $1.8 billion on top of current paid parental leave and parental tax credits.
She would also like to see a basic income for poorer families, with no minimum work requirement.
New Zealanders were quick to moralise and think that the poor would spend any extra money they got ‘‘on drinks and fags’’, she said.
But research showed poor families given more money increased their spending on their children and cut their spending on alcohol and tobacco.
The benefit was affordable in any number of ways, she said.
‘‘One is whether we need to start thinking about who is getting [NZ] Super and … whether there could be a better balance between how we support the elderly and the young.’’
A possible change would be to introduce a tax clawback on income earned by people who also received the pension. This would save about $1b a year.
‘‘Addressing the excess financial advantage superannuation gives well-off older people is a way to reduce the wastefulness of the current system and arrest its exponential growth as the baby boomers move to the front of the queue.’’
Rupapera said the politically ‘‘disruptive’’ policy would create a more even playing field.
‘‘However, just because that’s what I would do doesn’t mean all families would do the same. Give this amount of extra money to some families and it could create more problems. More alcohol, cigarettes, drugs? No child would succeed then.
‘‘If this universal benefit is to help parents out I think it should be given in a non-cash form. Fuel vouchers to get to work, grocery vouchers for food, store vouchers to buy clothing and linen. This would then be beneficial.’’