Material Hardship Lead Indicators Dashboard

Reducing child material hardship is a Portfolio Target for the Child Poverty Reduction portfolio. Statistics New Zealand publishes rates of child material hardship annually. As the data that informs these rates is collected via a survey, there is a lag in the data being available.

The Ministry of Social Development provides the Minister for Child Poverty Reduction with a quarterly dashboard that provides more up-to-date information about a range of ‘lead indicators’ that are related to child material hardship.

The lead indicators help the Government and officials to understand how material hardship rates may change. 

Dashboards:

• Note: In the graph for indicator one ('Indicative estimate of material hardship'), the solid lines represent measured child poverty rates, and the dashed lines represent forecast rates for the next three years. Please note that the graph includes the AHC50 and material hardship rates for 2023/24, released by Statistics New Zealand in February 2025. However, the forecast rate for AHC50, from which an estimated forecast rate for material hardship has been derived, is from the Child Poverty Budget Report released in May 2024. Updated forecasts will be published in the 2025 Child Poverty Budget Report, and will be included in the next material hardship lead indicators dashboard.