Poverty in New Zealand is examined again, this time by ex ACT leader Jamie Whyte in Poverty statistics suffer from paucity of common sense (NZ Herald).
There is no poverty in New Zealand. Misery, depravity, hopelessness, yes; but no poverty.
The poorest in New Zealand are the unemployed. They receive free medical care, free education for their children and enough cash to pay for basic food, clothing and (subsidised) housing. Most have televisions, refrigerators and ovens. Many even own cars. That isn’t poverty.
Why then do we keep hearing that more than 20 per cent of New Zealand children live in poverty? Those who tell us this do not mean by “poverty” what most people do. They have a statistical definition: you live in poverty if your household’s income is less than 50 per cent of the national median (after tax and housing costs, and adjusted for the number of adults and children in the household).
For example, the Herald recently published an article by Susan St John, spokeswoman for the Child Poverty Action Group, that claimed 220,000 children live in poverty because they “fall under the stringent 50 per cent after-housing-costs poverty line”.
Alas, the measure is not stringent; it is ridiculous.
Whyte goes on the explain why he thinks the claims of poverty in New Zealand are ridiculous.
Why would anyone use such a preposterous definition of poverty? Interviewed byThe Guardian, British poverty campaigner Peter Kenway defended it on the grounds that “it is a simple and reliable statistic which has played a huge part in propelling poverty up the policy agenda.”
It is far from reliable, and what it “pushes up the policy agenda” is not really poverty but inequality, which, in rich countries, is not the same thing. Poverty statistics based on this measure are misleading anyone who believes them.
Or the so called poverty statistics are being misused by people promoting an agenda with hints of socialism.
David Farrar agrees at Kiwiblog in Whyte on poverty.
And there is both strong criticism and agreement in a discussion at The Standard.
Weka:
Good grief. Couldn’t get past the first paragraph. Since when has there been free ‘medical’ care in NZ? What a dick.
Quite a bit of medical care is free for quite a few people in New Zealand.
Lanthanide:
Looks like a pretty reasonable article, to me. He eventually does at the end say the statistic is measuring inequality, not poverty, which I think he should have mentioned much earlier (short attention spans and all that). Also his sudden overuse of the word ‘pauper’ was strange.
Yes, Whyte’s repeated use of the term ‘pauper’ was odd, it seems as out of place in a New Zealand context as ‘poverty’.
This exchange illustrates part of the problem with the poverty campaigning.
maui:
I think what the poverty campaigners are trying to highlight is the people going without proper housing and proper food (amount and quality). In the 1st and 3rd world’s I would say this is a pretty good definition of poverty.
Lanthanide:
Then they should talk about that, instead of talking about the number of people who live in a household with less than 50% of the median household income.
But even defining poverty as “going without proper housing and proper food” can invite debate over what is judged proper housing and food.
The poverty debate is far from black and whyte.
