All around us are the signs of a society under stress:
‘Middle-class poor’ struggling with financial stresses: report
Increasing living costs are giving rise to the “middle-class poor”, an expert says, as a new report shows a large chunk of Canterbury families are under financial stress.
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Grandparents were increasingly living with whanau to help out due to the rise of the “middle-class poor” … Families could have two “decent salaries” but still struggle due to living costs and child care costs. …
Desperate Kiwis crack open KiwiSaver
A budget and advocacy service says more people are finding themselves in financial hardship and turning to their KiwiSaver accounts for emergency help.
It has been revealed that $41 million was withdrawn from the scheme last year, with more than 8000 people making financial hardship withdrawals. Geoff Curson, the co-ordinator of the Newtown Budgeting and Advocacy Service in Wellington, said he had seen a big rise in the number of people coming in with serious money problems. …
Rise in number of homeless pregnant women
Social workers and volunteers in Auckland say more and more homeless pregnant women are asking for help – some with nowhere to live just weeks before they are due to give birth.
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Rhys Abraham, who helps run a group distributing food and essentials to people living on the streets, said volunteers had helped some women who are eight months pregnant. Though there are no official figures, he believed the number of pregnant women sleeping rough in Auckland had trebled in the past 18 months.
Poverty and poor housing underlying causes of disease
A new report funded by The Asthma foundation, The impact of respiratory disease in New Zealand: 2014, released on Tuesday 5th May, shows New Zealand is failing to improve high levels of respiratory diseases like bronchiolitis, asthma, and bronchiectasis (chronic long term lung damage) , and in some cases levels are rising, despite a significant drop in smoking. Respiratory diseases are strongly linked with poverty and deprivation and have a disproportionate impact on Maori and Pacific people. …
Suicide toll reaches highest rate since records kept
The provisional suicide toll has risen to its highest figure since the coroner’s office started releasing the statistics. From the year June 2014- May 2015, 569 people died by suicide or suspected suicide.
But it’s not all doom and gloom citizens, there’s an upside:
The rich are getting richer – latest NBR Rich List released
The rich are getting richer according to the latest National Business Review Rich List for 2015.
So that’s OK then. Brighter Future! Cusp of Something Special!
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