Cost of living too much for poorest families

New figures showing food prices are up 6.6 percent since this time last year provide even more reason to invest in policies that boost the incomes of the poorest families and help to end child poverty, the Green Party said today.

Figures released by Statistics New Zealand show that while food prices fell 1.3 percent in August, they are still up 6.6 percent from the same time last year.

"High food prices and increased living costs mean it's increasingly hard for the poorest families in New Zealand to make ends meet," Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei said.

"The result is that hundreds of thousands of New Zealand children go without proper meals and other essentials, and miss out on the start in life they deserve.

"We see evidence of this every day as report after report documents the scale of child poverty in New Zealand. As many as 270,000 New Zealand children now live in poverty, or 1 in 4. This hurts their chances in life and costs the country up to $6 billion a year."

Mrs Turei said the Green Party was the only party with policy to address one of the key drivers of child poverty: discriminatory tax credits under Working for Families.

"Children have the same needs whether their parents are in work or not. They still need food to grow healthy and strong and other essentials like shoes and raincoats," Mrs Turei said.

"Working for Families discriminates against the poorest families by not providing the same level of support to beneficiary families as it does for other low-income households.

"This discrimination was started by the previous Labour Government and continues under National. The Green Party is the only party that would extend Working for Families to make it work for every low-income family.

"Correcting this discrimination would be worth an extra $60 per week to 140,000 of the poorest families in New Zealand.

"That would make a huge difference for families struggling to afford healthy food and other essentials.

"It would help more low-income families than Labour's policy of removing GST from fruit and vegetables, which Labour estimates is worth about $3 per week to an average household, and is not targeted at low-income families.

"The Green Party's plan to extend Working for Families, combined with an immediate increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour, would help hundreds of thousands of vulnerable families to make ends meet and cope with high food prices and other living costs," Mrs Turei said.

© Scoop Media