Post-Budget Breakfasts
Each year, shortly after the Government’s Budget is published, Child Poverty Action Group provides analysis of various budget papers. This analysis seeks to do two things – to critically examine budget figures in order to gain an appreciation of the Budget’s implications for children, and to publish this analysis as an alternative interpretation to that offered by mainstream media.
In addition to our published analysis, we also hold Post Budget events throughout the country. Our analysis has often led to increased media attention on child poverty and has attracted many high-profile speakers and audience members.
This page includes links to our most recent Budget analyses.
Budget 2022: No ‘secure future’ for children in poverty this budget
Despite some positive steps, 2022’s Budget represents a failed opportunity to bravely address child poverty, says the Child Poverty Action Group.
We all want to see children thrive, yet families locked into poverty will not see any relief from Budget 2022.
Of the child poverty reduction initiatives announced by the Government in Budget 2022, two were announced in 2021’s budget. Many families in the deepest poverty won't be eligible to receive the new Cost of Living payment, leaving them with nothing extra, at a time when the cost of groceries and other essentials are soaring.
While there are some important changes overall, the budget contained few significant initiatives to address child poverty, despite the obvious pressures being faced by the poorest families”. CPAG Health spokesperson Professor Innes Asher says
“While it’s encouraging to see large investments in healthcare, this needs to go hand in hand with other initiatives to reduce child poverty, especially for disabled children,” says CPAG Health spokesperson Professor Innes Asher. “While there is large investment into services, there is limited direct relief for families. The Government said this Budget is about Health. Poverty is one of the biggest determinants of health and wellbeing. We were hoping for something brave.”
Read the full analysis of Budget 2022 here and watch our budget event below.
Further links:
The Spinoff: Budget 2022: The three housing decisions in this year’s budget illustrate the deep malaise of this government’s housing policy, argues Alan Johnson.
RNZ: Poverty groups disappointed by budget (Professor Innes Asher).
CPAG Western Bay of Plenty presentation by Alan Johnson.
Budget 2021: Income support rises welcome, but not liveable or transformational
In 2021 Child Poverty Action Group welcomed the income support increases announced in the Budget. The rises will be a step towards income adequacy for many children in need, especially in those families where a couple receives a benefit.
However, few families receiving benefits will be lifted over poverty lines. The Government has put its child poverty targets in jeopardy. Māori and Pacific children are more commonly affected by poverty, so ongoing inadequacy of benefit incomes is discriminatory. Disabled children, and those in households with disabled members, are more likely to live in material hardship than others, yet have not received extra catch-up.
Actions to rectify Working For Families (WFF) are missing. The Welfare Expert Advisory Group (WEAG) recommended that all children supported by benefits should have access to all tax credits in WFF, and they should be indexed to wages.
If Government forecasting is correct and 19,000 to 33,000 children are lifted out of poverty by these changes, that will still leave 180,000 to 190,000 children in poverty. With the changes announced in the Budget, Treasury forecasts child poverty will reduce from 18.4% to only 17.0% by 2023. This is not yet the transformation that WEAG hoped for 3 years ago.
Children cannot wait. Their health and wellbeing are very sensitive to income shortages; financial stress and having to go without all the time are detrimental to children’s development. Brain development is greatest in the first 1000 days, so changes which don’t come fast enough or go far enough mean that children won’t reach their full potential. Why aren’t all the benefit increases being introduced on 1 July this year?
Budget 2020: Disappointed but hopeful
Child Poverty Action Group is both hopeful and disappointed with the Government’s Budget 2020.
For many years we have advocated for extra investment in housing, health, environment and education and so we are heartened by the announcements regarding these areas. We are also encouraged by the Government leaving clear opportunities for the future, so despite largely ignoring the needs of children in this budget, they can remedy this through effective and targeted spending measures.
However, this Budget is clearly focussed on responding and recovering from the shockwaves created by the COVID-19 pandemic, with significant investment on protecting jobs, upskilling and retraining, which are very important aspects to protecting families' incomes.
Given unemployment is forecast to rise to around 10 per cent, many people will be faced with inadequate welfare payments, resulting in much more child poverty and will also force people into enduring high-cost debt from predatory lenders.
The budget gives little indication of how it will reform our income support systems, despite hardship provision projected to grow 34 per cent to $622 million by 2024, with equivalent increases expected in recoverable assistance. As families require complex supplementary payments just to survive, and they will have to run down their assets to qualify.
The Government itself states in this budget that the numbers of those in material hardship are expected to rise sharply. This will not only create short term individual issues but also result in long term systemic issues that will damage not only children and families but also the very fabric of New Zealand society in generations to come.
Budget 2019: Improving child wellbeing? Some relief, but no transformation
Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) has said that the Government should be warmly congratulated for the reframing of the Budget to reflect human wellbeing outcomes.
“The new approach signals a greater understanding of the tragic extent of the social deficits created over many years of neglect,” says Associate Professor Susan St John, CPAG’s Economics advisor. “Struggling families will benefit from the extra spending on mental health, domestic violence, and early intervention for at-risk children. But little has been done to address the serious problem of inadequate incomes.”
CPAG says the plan to index benefits to average wage inflation is a step forward to prevent families from falling even further behind, but it doesn’t address the almost three decades of failure to index adequately. As a result of this failure, current benefit levels fall far below the real costs of living, and families who receive income from a main benefit are struggling to meet even the most basic of their children’s needs, and rely more than ever on charity to fill the gap. A substantial increase in benefits was needed.
Budget 2018: A first step - but not a transformation for children
Budget 2018 contained many good measures, such as better access for low-income families to primary healthcare; housing; social services, and critical infrastructure. But while it was a good first step, it did not reflect the enormity of the income and wealth gaps, and the Budget did not deliver the life-changing relief from severe poverty that too many children are experiencing in 2018. There is promise of more to come in the future following expert advisory groups' reporting back, but CPAG says that these children cannot wait and the projected budget surplus indicates that the money is there to help them now. We acknowledge that the new Government has made a commitment to children in poverty as being top priority, and that the family poverty inherited from the last decade of poor policy design and negligence won't be fixed overnight. But the opportunity to change their lives is now, and it is one that must be taken.
Budget 2017: A trickle not a tide
This Budget does not deliver enough for all the children in poverty in New Zealand. Given that we have budget surpluses, this is a lost opportunity. Surprisingly small gestures have been made despite the Government’s loud claims to be putting children at the centre of policy. Unlike people on NZ Superannuation, people on benefits are not assisted by the tax cuts, but are assisted by the increases in Working for Families. We also note that the Government’s definition of ‘social investment’ appears to include over $1 billion on new operating and capital spending on prisons, money better spent on providing adequate support for children and their families.
There are currently 85,000 children in severe material hardship. The Family Incomes Package increase will lift 35,000 children out of severe housing stress. This is less than half the number of children in desperate need of the greatest assistance. Much more needs to be done to reduce child poverty in New Zealand.
Budget 2016: Not the New Zealand we want
CPAG endorsed the Government’s stated commitment to improve the lives of all vulnerable children, however found that it had failed dismally with the 2016 Budget announcement. CPAG asked for meaningful policies for incomes in this budget but there is nothing in this budget for families with children. When so many New Zealand families are in crisis and children are bearing the brunt this budget does nothing. Children were mentioned in the context of there being 40,000 fewer living in benefit-dependent households, though the claim is meaningless with the evidence that so many more families are clearly needing food banks and other social services.
Still Smarting from that Not-Too-Long-Ago Budget