Times are tight and the government’s books are poor.
Many of us are doing some version of ‘‘tough’’.
For those at the (financial) bottom of the heap - an unemployed person over 25 gets $370 or so a week after tax (single Super is $555, minimum wage is $766 and the median wage is about $1040); there are nearly 170,000 of our children living in hardship, 40% in a household where work is the main source of income - there is precious little in this year’s Budget.
General inflation is still to spike (with food to go even higher). Unemployment too, will rise; despite already record-high rural youth unemployment rates in some places (43% in parts of the Bay of Plenty). So ‘‘tough’’ is about to get ‘‘tougher’’ for some.
The fixes (OECD says fix electricity pricing, fix taxation of KiwiSaver, fix investment, fix poor productivity) aren’t here: the Budget edges up to the well-known social issues, but there is no substantial short or long-term relief.
On the day that Community Housing Aotearoa announced that homelessness in New Zealand has reached its highest ever level, we’re promised an additional 2250 social houses (from 2028); the day after the Reserve Bank forecast unemployment at 6%, the Ministry of Social Development has more money to help sole parents into work. There are some more Trades Academies places, Oranga Tamariki gets a bit more to help children with high and complex needs, there is a boost for prisons and cuts to foodbanks are reversed.
Of the $20m saved on switching around social housing rent assistance, less than half is going on additional emergency housing support services.
For charities, it looks like technical changes to the taxation of donations are pretty much it.
While the government’s books are tight - albeit the predicted return to surplus is now a year ahead of December’s forecast - and a solid chunk of the blame for our current economic situation lies overseas (with assists from New Zealand’s poor productivity and over-expensive housing); those with the least are going to bear the brunt in this time of economic de/re-cession without much help.
• Laura Black is director of Methodist Mission Southern.
