What are we doing to make further progress on reducing child poverty?
Although there are now tens of thousands fewer children living in poverty, maintaining this progress will be challenging in the context of the economic volatility, and inflationary backdrop that is being experienced globally. Long-standing problems such as climate change and housing quality and affordability remain challenging, and the impacts of COVID-19 also remain with us. We know that experiences of the pandemic differ greatly between New Zealanders and its long-term effects are yet to be fully seen.
This means that achieving the targets we released in June 2021 for the second three-year target period[5] will be particularly challenging. We will continue to prioritise child poverty reduction and keep a strong focus on children and low-income families and whānau, while also tackling the long-term challenges in areas like employment and housing.
The targets we have set are as follows:
| After-housing-costs, fixed-line measure How many households have very low incomes relative to previous years, after considering housing costs and increases to the cost of living? |
Before-housing-costs, moving-line measure How many households have much lower incomes than other households? |
Material Hardship How many households do not have access to the essential items for living? |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Base year rate in 2020/21 |
16.3% | 13.6% | 11.0% |
| Second three-year target for 2023/24 | 15% | 10% | 9% |
| The 10-year target by 2027/28 | 10% | 5% | 6% |
Notes
- [5] See: Notification of Setting of Targets Under the Child Poverty Reduction Act 2018-2021 (https://gazette.govt.nz/notice/id/2021-go2605).