More than a quarter-of-a-million Kiwi kids still live in low-income households despite efforts to lift incomes, according to the latest Child Poverty Monitor report.
And almost 150,000 are in families that can't afford the basics, prompting calls from the Children's Commissioner for "big, bold changes".
"We are in danger, as a country, of marginalising a group of kids and reinforcing generational disadvantage," Andrew Becroft told Newshub.
Some of the shocking figures in Monday's report include:
- 254,000 Kiwi children - 23 percent - live in households which have less than half the median income after housing costs (up from 21.4 percent the year before)
- 148,000 (13 percent) live in households experiencing material hardship - that means going without six or more essentials for a decent standard of living, such as heating, food and decent clothing (slightly up on last year)
- 65,000 live in households experiencing severe material hardship - going without nine or more essentials (slightly down on last year)
- children living in areas of high deprivation are three times more likely to end up hospital than those living in wealthy areas
- they're five times more likely to be hospitalised with bronchiolitis due to substandard housing
- 174,000 (15 percent) live in homes that can't always afford to put healthy food on the table (a slight improvement on last year's report when it was about 20 percent), including 56 percent of kids whose parents receive income support
- more than 30 percent of low-income households spend more than half their income on housing costs (slightly up).
"Every child in Aotearoa New Zealand deserves to have the opportunity and support they need to live a good life," said Becroft.
"But some families can't keep up with the ever-increasing costs of daily living, like rent and putting food on the table."
He said there are two key ways to tackle the problem.
"We've got to hugely increase incomes - increasing benefits and the minimum wage - and secondly, we need to massively increase our state housing stock."
The report says babies and pre-schoolers are hardest-hit by poor housing, as they spend more time at home than other children.
"Meeting high housing costs relative to income can leave insufficient money to cover other basic needs such as food, clothing, heating, transport, medical care and education, especially for low-income households."
The Government has set targets of reducing child poverty by about half over 10 years. It's also passed legislation requiring annual reports on how it's doing.
Becroft said further changes can't come fast enough.
"I am pleased that we've started the journey with Child Poverty Reduction legislation, the Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy, and linking benefits to wages.
"Government has made increases in Working for Families, Best Start for Children, and winter energy payments. This is a fantastic start... But we need to see significant and permanent changes to unlock opportunities for those doing it hardest. One-offs aren't going to cut it anymore," says Becroft.
The figure of 254,000 Kiwi children living in low-income households was reported by Statistics NZ in April. The team behind the Child Poverty Monitor say there is a lag in the data, so the impact of any recent initiatives might not show up in this year's report.
The Child Poverty Monitor report is put together by the Office of the Children's Commissioner, the JR McKenzie Trust and the New Zealand Child and Youth Epidemiology Service at the University of Otago.
