What are Mothers Worth? (March 1979)
Fences and Ambulances: An Economist Looks at Family Policy (July 1992)
Suffer the Children (November 1993)
Approaching Family Economic Issues: Holistically or Pathologically? (October 1994)
Family Policy: Creative or Destructive? (November 1994)
The External Impact on the Family Firm (March 1996)
Review of Children of the Poor (April 1997)
Household Gods: Whatever Politicians Say, Children Interests Are Ignored (October 1997)
You’re on Your Own: the Nanny State Becomes A Hard Taskmaster (March 1998)
Poor Children (February 2001)
Is This a Healthy Budget for New Zealanders? (May 2002)
Family Policy and Family Support (September 2002)
Notes on a Commission for the Family (September 2002)
Children and their parents are the largest group of the poor (November 2002)
Treat the Kids: Why Michael Cullen Should Blow A Bit of the Budget Surplus (May 2003)
Spending the Public Growth Dividend: Why Was There So Little for Children? (May 2003)

Index of Distributional Economics

Index of The Economic and Health Status of Households Project

Also see the New Zealand Child Poverty Action Group

Footnote for Listener 8 May 1999

DPBs vs MPs

Act leader, Richard Prebble, recently claimed that a sole parent could get a total “package” of up to $38,000 a year, made up as follows (on a weekly basis):

Domestic Purposes Benefit for a parent and two children: $230.24;
Family Support: $79;
Accommodation allowance: $150 (maximum);
Tertiary training incentive allowance: $75 (maximum);
Child care subsidy: $72 (maximum);
Allowable earnings (after tax and abatement) $43.20 (maximum).

However detailed analysis showed that the poor women (and two young children) – with a job, tertiary training, and burdensome housing costs would have only $151.44 a week left for food, clothing, fuel, and other non-accommodation expenses.

Mr Prebble showed extraordinary restraint in his calculations. He ignored contributions from a boarder, unreported wages, investment income, and prostitution earnings, plus subsidies from the Serbian Liberation Front. In total she could have the up to (as the weasel phrase goes) the equivalent of $78,000 a year, or the salary of an MP.

I leave the reader to judge whether the nation is getting better value from its DPBs or some of its MPs.