Insights from New Zealand child poverty data

There are strong links between hardship, income, and housing costs for some families, but not others. For beneficiary families, we find that families experiencing deeper income poverty are more likely to be experiencing hardship. But there is less of a link between hardship and income when we consider working families. Many appear to have adequate incomes but experience deprivation and vice versa. The data suggest that we also need to think about other aspects of economic wellbeing such as wealth and extra costs related to, for example, disability and childcare. Not all beneficiaries are in poverty, and not all children in poverty are in beneficiary families. Beneficiaries with high housing costs have their before housing cost incomes boosted via the Accommodation Supplement, which makes them appear to have adequate incomes even though they are in poverty on other measures. However, for working families with high housing costs, our model suggests that some families in poverty meet the eligibility requirements for Accommodation Supplement but are not receiving it. Although mostly coupled parents, working families in poverty or near poverty thresholds are more likely to be one earner families; these families are around twice as likely to have only one earner than other families with children.