Andrew Dickens Afternoons

So now we have a new measure of child hardship and poverty in New Zealand.Stats NZ has come up with a survey that asked between 3000 and 5500 households how they are faring. Now already I’m confused because of how many households was it. 3000 or 5500?Anyway. They asked quite a few households how they’re faring and they found that about 183,000, or 16 percent of children currently live in poverty before housing costs are deducted. The figure jumps up to 23 percent, about 254,000 children after housing costs are deducted.Hell of a phrase that, child poverty. In this report, it’s defined as children living in households who earn less than 50 percent of the median national income. In 2018 the median wage was $49,000 so we’re talking about kids in households with about $25,000 coming in.That’s not a lot of money in modern New Zealand. In 2018 Trade Me told us that the median rent in New Zealand for a two to four bedroom house was $525 or $27,000 a year. Or $2000 more than the families of quarter of a million kids