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It's been a tough few years for many households - but people with disabilities have been struggling particularly hard, representatives say.
A recent Ministry of Social Development report included data showing that half of New Zealanders reported cutting back on fruit and vegetables as costs rose, and many were putting off going to the doctor.
But the data showed things were even worse for disabled people.
Overall, two in five New Zealanders reported they did not have enough income. But only 44.2 percent of disabled people reported having enough or more than enough income to meet everyday needs in 2023 - a significant drop from 61.7 percent of the disabled population in 2021.
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IHC director of advocacy Tania Thomas said people with an intellectual disability were twice as likely to be in hardship up to age 39 and three times as likely between 40 and 64.
They were three times more likely to cut back on fruit and vegetables due to the cost and twice as likely to put up with being cold because they could not afford heating. Children with intellectual disability were six-and-a-half times more likely to miss school events due to cost.
"Most other people are in a state of less hardship the older they get but that's not the case for people with an intellectual disability and that's probably a lot to do with the fact that employment for people with an intellectual disability is more difficult ... Often the jobs that people with intellectual disabilities get do not lift them out of poverty so you have to have more than just getting a job to make a difference."
She said there should be a government-led plan to reduce poverty for disabled people, including targeted financial support. "Not only are they living in hardship and severe hardship, actually getting more money to apply for funding is a bit of a nightmare. It's a very bureaucratic process. So not only are you stressed because you don't have enough money to look after your family but you've got to go through some sort of grueling process to get anything more, then you might not get it anyway."
It was not just the disabled people themselves who were affected but their wider families.
In Kerikeri, Tracey Jenkins cared for four children with disabilities, three of whom were her grandchildren. She said her nine-year-old did not go to school, which made it hard to work.
"Because he has such big meltdowns and the school can't handle it. They were just ringing me up all the time and I was going to pick him up and having to say to work 'sorry I have to go and pick up my child from school'."
She had to drive him and another child from Kerikeri to Whangārei for Pathways for Learning once a week. "He also goes to horse riding, which he does enjoy … you don't have enough petrol money to go all the time but you have to go so it has to come from somewhere else either way. It's a good thing for him, it's therapy for him, it's regulating him."
She said he also caused damage at home that had to be paid for. "Financially, there's never enough."
Rebekah Graham, national director for Parents of Vision Impaired NZ, said she shared IHC's concerns.
"All the stats are quite clear that disabled people and their families are more likely to be in material poverty and more likely to be overrepresented across all the poverty levels."
She said disability allowances and the supported living allowance should be indexed to wage growth, rather than just inflation as they were at present, so that they kept pace with other earnings.
"A lot of family members who are carers for a disabled person are on a supported living payment and we don't treat the supported living payment like the pension and that makes it really difficult … if we shift the supported living payment in particular into a benefit like superannuation where it's not means-tested and not reliant on your partner, that would be something that would straight away have a major difference."
At present, eligibility depended on the amount of overall income a household earned. But she said it meant that people who met a partner, for example, could not move in with them without the partner taking on financial responsibility for them.
"It also means that for people who are able to be employed but who may not be able to manage full time work you wouldn't have to deal with this horrible situation where you can only earn so much and then your benefit starts getting impacted. It would make it much easier to say I can manage 10 hours' work a week and I can do that well. Or I could probably work 25, 30 hours a week but there might be weeks where I'm in hospital or it gets a bit much or I need to take a break."
She said people whose children could attend school could work part-time but that was made harder in situations like Jenkins' where school was not a reliable option.
Graham said while most people would find they could work more as their children became older, the reverse was often true in a disability context.
"Once your child exits the school system at age 21, if they have Ongoing Resourcing Scheme (ORS) support until they're 21 there's not a lot for them to go to after that … and that is when a lot of women end up, instead of transitioning into full time work or developing their career or retraining or all of those things women do as their children age, you're actually quitting all of that and having to be at home as the full time carer for a 21-year-old … The day programmes are a little chaotic and haphazard."
She said a lot of support was offered as a subsidy but it did not cover the full cost.
"It's subsidising the cost but there is still a cost there to the disabled people and their family."
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