The welfare trend

Lindsay Mitchell blogs:

When did you last read a headline in MSM about more children being raised on welfare? Yet latest Ministry of Social Development benefit statistics show at the end of 2023 the number reached a new high of 222,500.

So they dropped to 2017,. but since then has increased by 50,000 or so.

Look at the stats for Northland: lowest regular school attendance at just over a third (34.2%) and highest dependence on a single parent or jobseeker benefit (14.5% of working-age population). Christchurch has the highest regular attendance at almost half (49.4%) and second lowest reliance on the same benefits (6.4%). Mere coincidence?

There is a wealth of evidence that being raised in a household where no one works is correlated strongly with bad outcomes in later life.