New Zealand is backsliding on social progress as food and housing become increasingly unaffordable, warns the Salvation Army in its latest State of the Nation report.
Rising food insecurity now affects a quarter of all households, with half of Pacific Island families regularly going without meals.
Welfare dependence has surged, with over 400,000 people seeking support—higher than any point since 1998.
The report also highlights worsening child violence, growing financial strain from high rents, and a challenging job market.
Meanwhile, declining government funding and reduced charitable donations make it harder for aid organisations to respond.
The Salvation Army urged the government to prioritise essential needs as more families face hardship. On the positive side, youth crime rates were decreasing, according to the report.
A significant stress factor was the cost of rent.
“In four in every 10 communities rental prices are pretty unaffordable, that means they’re over 30 percent of the median income… If you’re paying that much rent you don’t have the money to provide all the other things you need to,” a spokesperson told state funded media.
“We’re not seeing private rental prices coming down, and that is a major cause of hardship and poverty.”
I am afraid this is what happens when handouts are given, no one is against a hand-up but we now have a culture of entitlement rather than a culture of work as we used to when NZ was thriving.
I blame successive govt no one is allowed to think speak #8 wire do it yourself culture has been killed.
Its simple stuff if you are unproductive you become a 3rd world nation, our current PM looking overseas to fix our infrastructure sums it up we have given up we are 3rd world, Mulldons think big is what we need we can do it get rid of the bureaucracy let the trades thrive take the chains off we had clever engineers we can again,
We can do it but we lack political will. Why is this?
Get the elite rich Iwi to feed their poorer people for a change.
And it hasn’t even started
“We’re not seeing private rental prices coming down, and that is a major cause of hardship and poverty.”
WRONG!
The major cause of hardship and poverty in New Zealand (and other countries) is the strangulation of the internatJonal bankster cabal, owning basically ALL Western countries via extortionist debt traps and compound interest. The blue/red dichotomy is none, because in order to sell goodies to the voter cattle any politician is corrupted by that cabal.
NOTHING will change until that is comprehended by the people.
One major cause was the government’s response to Covid that was under the direction of the military and intelligence services rather than established medical practices.
Here, fixed it for you:
One major cause was the government’s response to Covid that was under the direction of the corruption by big pharma and the international bankster syndicate rather than established medical practices.