Research conducted by AUT’s New Zealand Work Research Institute and commissioned by the Human Rights Commission has found more than 50,000 working households live in poverty across Aotearoa.
The report, In-work poverty in New Zealand, examines the extent and characteristics of in-work poor households.
The research found that the overall in-work poverty rate was 7 percent before housing costs. This rate varies greatly across several demographic dimensions – for example, it rises to 12.3 percent for single-parent households, and 19.9 percent for two or more family households where only one adult is working.
The findings show that without Working for Families (WfF) tax credits and the Accommodation Supplement (AS) the in-work poverty rate rises by 31 percent (up 2.2 percentage points). The biggest impact is for single-parent households where this rate rises to 21.6 percent without these two income sources.
The Human Rights Commission will be analysing the human rights implications of these findings to inform their advocacy work focussing on poverty, equality and non-discrimination.
(All content in this article is courtesy Human Rights Commission)
Key figures at a glance:
Prevalence: Amongst working households, the proportion of households in poverty is 7.0 percent as at March 2013. There has been very little change in in-work poverty rates between 2007 and 2017.
Sensitivity: Definitions and thresholds matter. For example, when using the income distribution of a more restricted reference sample the prevalence of in-work poverty rises to 12.4 percent.
Role of Working for Families (WfF) tax credits and the Accommodation Supplement (AS): Inclusion of these two income sources make a sizable impact on in-work poverty prevalence. Without both income sources, the in-work poverty rate rises from 7.0 percent to 9.2 percent.
Gender: 7.7 percent of adult females are associated with an in-work poor household, while for men this number is 6.6 percent.
Children: 10 percent of children living in working households live in poverty, compared with 7.2 percent of adults in working households.
Ethnicity: Households with at least one adult with prioritised ethnicity of Pacific peoples experience the highest in-work poverty rate compared with households of other ethnicities.
Disability: Households with at least one disabled adult have a higher rate of in-work poverty of 9.5 percent compared with households without a disabled adult at 6.6 percent.
Household structure: The lowest in-work poverty rate is observed for households comprising a couple without children (4.8 percent), followed by a couple with child(ren) (6.3 percent) and single adults (6.4 percent). Higher rates exist for single-parent (12.3 percent) and multi-family households (9.6 percent).
Additional earner: Having a second worker in the household reduces the in-work poverty risk substantially. For example, for couples with children and only one adult working, the in-work poverty rate is 13.5 percent; this falls to 1.9 percent if there is more than one adult working.
-TIN Bureau