Interviews show people receiving benefits have been largely neglected in the wake of Covid - and how that affects their mental wellbeing.

Covid-19 is no excuse for Government failure to care for children. It is, in fact, a reason to step-up efforts to ensure children are protected from the effects of poverty. Covid-19 is a child poverty issue.

The major Working for Families review undertaken by IRD, Treasury and MSD is taking place behind closed doors. There are no published terms of reference, no timeline and no public consultations at this stage.

Meaningful reform to WFF is well over-due. There is much unconscious bias and implicit racism in the current WFF.

The problem is clear. Monetary policy has inflated the property market with cheap money. The result has been a mushrooming wealth divide.

CPAG’s election scorecard shows our assessment of the efficacy of announced party policies in our election priority areas of income adequacy, housing security and health equity.

Child poverty stats can be tricky and they're in the news a lot in the lead-up to the election; We’ve put this information together in the hope it helps assist interpretation.

Where is digital exclusion in the COVID19 psychosocial & mental wellbeing recovery plan?

Imagine that during the Covid-19 lockdown you had no means to buy online goods, because your EFTPOS-like card could only be used in person at a limited number of shops, many of which were closed.

We need to be wary of the law of unintended consequences as we contemplate what our post-Covid-19 future might look like.

New Zealanders believe in justice. We care about protecting our right to a dignified and decent life. An effective welfare system is only serving its purpose then, when it is taking care of the people at the heart of it. We know we’re not there yet.

In 2020, the big question will be, can the Government end child poverty in Aotearoa? The answer is yes, but the steps need to be bold, and a shining success story that we can take our lead from is that of Alberta, Western Canada.

Many of us are anxious about the tally of expenditure and what that will mean for the year to come.

Tuesday's announcement from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Finance Minister Grant Robertson about a whopping $7.5 billion surplus came as a pleasant surprise.

My teammates and I recently spent time in a classroom of children at a decile 2 school, talking about hopes and dreams, and what’s needed to achieve them.

When New Zealand’s tamariki and rangatahi were consulted about wellbeing, they responded with the kind of clarity, insight and brutal honesty that my kids usually reserve for observations on my fashion sense.

Everyone, no matter how much they earn, should have the right to choose who they love and live with. But if you're a single parent on income support in Aotearoa, choosing love is often a luxury you can't afford.

With all the tools in our kit to finally revamp our failing social support system, the 2019 Wellbeing Budget could have been transformational for children in poverty.

Rather than encouraging beneficiaries to do more paid work if they can, the current thresholds have exactly the opposite effect.

There’s a line in the Executive Summary of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group (WEAG) report that sums things up perfectly: “Urgent and fundamental change is needed”.

In 2013, the median payment rate for disability allowances for children in the United Kingdom was almost three times higher than in New Zealand.

If the income from work is not in itself an incentive, and needs to be topped up by the government to make it worth the effort, then that raises another question. If work isn’t enough on its own, then isn’t the In-Work Tax Credit functioning as a tool to ensure income adequacy?

The latest announcement from Housing Minister Phil Twyford on the new Healthy Homes standards is really great news. The new standards will mean low-income families who are renting will get homes that are able to be heated more efficiently and are better safe-guarded against dampness.

Single parents on low incomes are always treading water. The problem is that when we start the year facing several hundred dollars of costs, well, it’s almost impossible to keep your head up.

Doing Christmas ‘on the cheap’ is not as easy as many suggest it is, and often with the best of intentions those who try still end up spending more than they can afford, potentially having to fall back onto credit to do so.

The essence of ‘manaakitanga’ is in demonstrating hospitality, showing respect and generosity and providing support for others. It is the foundation for cultivating relationships based on kindness, aroha and empowerment.

The Tomorrow’s Schools Independent Taskforce recommends system and structural changes which will require far greater ‘working together’ and will ultimately make our schooling futures stronger.

Landlords can evict a person for lots of reasons, or for no reason. Maybe this made sense in 1986; the policy context was different. Renting was seen as more of a temporary option, but today, growing numbers of people will be living in a home they rent for the rest of their lives.

In her work as an advocate who supports beneficiaries with their Work and Income (WINZ) appointments, author Pip Colgan sees many heartbreaking cases where families living in poverty have difficulty accessing the support they need to get by.

On World Food Day, let’s really talk about about securing #ZeroHunger schools in New Zealand where every child is nutritiously fed at every school every day, as a right.

Why some struggling families miss out on the Government's Winter Energy Payment over winter, while many over-65s not in need get it automatically?

Congratulations to the Green Party for their initiative that calls for an overhaul of the welfare system which is no longer ‘fit for purpose’. 2018 offers a unique opportunity to get meaningful change.

Families make ends meet in a number of ways. A common method of survival is to increase uptake of inexpensive highly-processed products. These are readily available, require little in the way of storage or cooking costs, and fill hungry bellies.

‘Money week’ is like birthdays and Christmas – they are not something you look forward to if you don’t have any money.

How much are caregivers of the young worth to an ageing society? In the years to come, a growing demographic of retired baby boomers will be evermore reliant on the willingness and ability of the younger population to support them.

People should be wary of recent criticism of Working for Families (WFF) tax credits as being a poverty trap. The problem is not the system itself, but the poor design from its inception.

Why are we deducting money that is intended for children’s basic needs, from meagre incomes, just to claw back potential child support losses that are not their fault?

On 18 April, responding to Sarah Hall’s story on Newsroom about truck vendors, Kris Faafoi, the Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister, said there would be a consumer finance review looking at predatory practices.

How well is New Zealand doing to ensure it upholds its international obligations to human rights, especially where they relate to children?

A good tenancy contract shouldn’t be felt or considered a privilege, it should be a right. As renters, and as parents, we should be assured of safety, security, and to be free from the constant reminder of who wields the power to decide our fate.

Vanessa Cole, Co-ordinator for Auckland Action Against Poverty spoke at CPAG’s launch of our new report “Further fraying of the welfare safety net”, about her experience working with families who have been sorely let down by New Zealand’s crumbling welfare system.

Raising achievement is not gained by assessments which check whether a child is at a particular level. Yet testing became the overarching norm to justify statements related to achievement.

Should sole parents who are fighting just to get by, and to raise healthy children, really be considered fraudulent, if all that’s happened is they started a new relationship, and possibly shared some bills?

With all the rhetoric around domestic violence and women and children it’s hard to believe that even today when women experience hardship and reach out to the state for support, they are still judged and punished by the very agency that is designed to help them.

CPAG talks to Robert Choy, executive officer at Ngā Tangata Microfinance about high-interest debt and its effects on low-income families.

A worker at the coalface (who chooses not to be named) tells CPAG about the disparities in social service organisations across the nation, and the problems they may face due to the limitations of criteria box-checking.

With winter now well set in, emergency departments around New Zealand are being inundated by our most vulnerable population- our children.

It’s time our Government stopped confusing the nation with its baffling numbers and vague talk of housing projects, and showed New Zealanders a real plan to increase the current social housing stock.

There's a mountain of research to show that when it's incredibly hard to make ends meet, it's food that takes the hit, because it's the only flexible expense.

Social Housing Minister Amy Adams’ claims of 72,000 social housing units by 2021 deserves special scrutiny because this number doesn’t exist in the real world.

There is a world of difference between a customer and a citizen. A customer buys goods and services; a citizen is a member of a country and has rights, entitlements, privileges and protections.

The New Zealand Herald’s recent “Home Truths” series brought some significant insights into New Zealand’s unaffordable housing crisis. The enormous scale of the crisis was put under a spotlight and our nation’s leaders were challenged on their political will to do something about it.

The World Bank consistently ranks New Zealand as first out of 190 countries for ease of doing business, starting a business, protecting minority investors and getting credit. That is great for businesses, but we don’t provide the same safe and fair financial environment for our low income citizens.

Why do we need tax credits? Tax credits keep the whole shebang of family income afloat. Wages are now so far behind the basic costs of living that, without tax credits, very few families could survive.

There is something profoundly pleasing in reading of innovation and success in one of New Zealand’s low-decile schools.

The latest figures released by the Ministry of Social Development show numbers of Sole Parent Support recipients are dropping. But a lack of information about what's happened to those families, or why they're off the benefit is cause for concern.

Quality inclusive early childhood care and education (ECCE) benefits everybody immediately and into the long term. Low quality ECCE has a negative effect on children’s well-being, learning and success.

Much has been said and written about 'social investment' this year, and undoubtedly even more will be made of the idea in 2017.

Health issues arise from a range of complex environmental, social, and physical reasons. The solutions to them are rarely linear.

Our tenancy laws are well overdue for an overhaul.

As any long-term tenant will know, rents have moved on considerably since 2005. There are various measures for rent inflation and if some are to be believed we don’t have a problem with unaffordable housing.

Therese Luxton of Child Poverty Action Group, visited James Cook High School in Manurewa to discuss with students what poverty is like for real New Zealand families.

Magnanimity, no matter how pure hearted, is not a sustainable basis for a social welfare state. The only sustainable basis is mutual interdependence – stemming from the knowledge that we are in the same boat.

Unhealthy and insecure accommodation has adverse effects on children’s health and wellbeing, which in turn affects their learning and development.

Even if as a doctor you are doing your best while the boy is in hospital, the improvement you can make is limited by the home environment.

April 15th is Youth Homelessness Matters Day, and Lifewise and Youthline are joining forces to raise awareness about youth homelessness in New Zealand.

My three sisters and I never had breakfast, and packed lunches were something mythical. They were something that other kids got out of their schoolbags at lunchtime, but never us.

Through no fault of their own thousands of children live in households with incomes that scarcely cover the basics, least of all luxuries such as a bed of their own or new shoes every winter.