Poverty
About Poverty
How we treat those who are struggling is one of the key markers of a compassionate society. We’re committed to investigating the reality of poverty and deprivation in New Zealand, with the purpose of contributing well-researched policy recommendations that have the potential to transform and redeem the lives of our neighbours who need help.
Most Recent Activity
“Random” answers for poverty prove Nobel-worthy
By Kieran Madden
Far too often, debates on topics that really matter are mired in oversimplification at best, and stagnate in sloganeering at…
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Work = wellbeing
By Danielle van Dalen
“Choose a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” This cliché was printed on a…
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Creating poverty-busting opportunites that work for people with disabilities
By Alex Penk
by Alex Penk and Danielle van Dalen This week there’s been a lot of coverage about employment opportunities for people…
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Creating better opportunities for work
By Danielle van Dalen
New Zealand is in the middle of a national conversation on poverty, and yet, despite being over-represented in the poverty…
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Policy Paper | Creating Opportunity
By Danielle van Dalen
People with disabilities are overlooked in the national conversation on poverty and overrepresented in New Zealand’s poverty statistics. They face…
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Two-and-a-half cheers for child poverty bill
By Alex Penk
I was born at the tail-end of Gen X, so I grew up with a pop culture saturated by “fear…
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Mana in Mahi isn’t your average work-for-the-dole scheme
By Kieran Madden
Translated to “strength in work,” Labour’s Mana in Māhī scheme shows real potential to make a difference in the lives…
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Irresponsible lenders on borrowed time
By Julian Wood
While borrowing money at an annualised interest rate of up to 693% wouldn’t appear at the top of anyone’s wish…
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Submission: Child Poverty Reduction Bill
By Kieran Madden
Maxim Institute supports this Bill and proposes amendments to strengthen it. We welcome this Bill and its potential to increase…
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Promises and plans to change poverty in New Zealand
By Kieran Madden
A few weeks ago, my colleague wrote about Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s “courageous move” to introduce the Child Poverty Reduction…
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Labour’s courageous move on poverty
By Jeremy Vargo
Labour’s announcement last week of the Child Poverty Reduction Bill was almost instantly hailed by many as a huge step…
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Discussion Paper | Acknowledging Ability
By Danielle van Dalen
People who are living with a disability are vastly overrepresented in New Zealand’s poverty figures, and 74 percent of those…
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Save Social Investment
By Kieran Madden
National’s Social Investment Approach must stay, but not as we know it. Imagine, for a moment, that policies are cars….
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Investing in people, regardless of return
By Julian Wood
Like the proverbial frog in the slowly heating pot, many of us are blissfully unaware of the change currently going…
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The State must serve
By Kieran Madden
Is the government’s flagship Social Investment approach simply the “incremental privatisation of social services?” When journalist Richard Harman posed this…
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The trust trade-off
By Kieran Madden
The Government is going all in on its Social Investment strategy for fixing social ills, but the big data it…
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Creating opportunities to contribute
By Danielle van Dalen
Last week New Zealander Robert Martin took up his position in Geneva as Spokesperson for Disabled People on the United…
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Valuing access to work
By Danielle van Dalen
Unemployment is costly. It costs the unemployed person and it costs society. For plenty of people with disabilities this cost…
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Poverty in New Zealand | The Heart of Poverty
By Kieran Madden
Research Series Every society tells a story about the good life, getting a fair go, or what it takes to live…
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Welfare to work?
By Kieran Madden
Just where do people go when they move off a benefit? It’s a serious question that demands an answer. Why?…
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