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Enhancing Food Security and Physical Activity for Māori, Pacific and Low-income Peoples2.3 Full and correct benefit entitlementsKristie Carter, Tolotea Lanumata & Louise SignalSummaryParticipants at the ENHANCE workshop on money available in households, identifiedreceiving full and correct benefit entitlements as an intervention to increase moneyavailable in low income households to alleviate food insecurity.Previous research has shown that the majority of beneficiaries in New Zealand live inhardship and many are food insecure. There have been a number of reports showingthat a number of beneficiaries are not receiving their full and correct benefitentitlements. It has been shown that there are ethnic disparities in accessing thebenefits such as the Special Benefit and these disparities were greater in someregions than others.The Ministry of Social Development has made a commitment to ensuring peoplereceive their full and correct benefit entitlement. With respect to food security, recentlythe government increased the monetary value of Special Needs Grants particularly forfood, which people can now apply for up to twice a year.The recommendations are that:• MSD strengthens its policy of ensuring full and correct benefit entitlements forall beneficiaries• MSD enhances case management to ensure the policy is fully and fairlyimplemented• MSD and other agencies undertake further research to find effective ways toensure the policy is fully and fairly implemented• there is on-going monitoring by MSD and other agencies of the effectivenessof this policy• MSD and other agencies support local and community initiatives to educatecommunities about benefit entitlement.Problem DefinitionParticipants at the ENHANCE workshop on money available in households, identifiedreceiving full and correct benefit entitlements as an intervention to increase moneyavailable in low income households to alleviate food insecurity. This was stronglysupported by participants working at the community level. Full and correct benefitentitlement refers to beneficiaries receiving all core and additional benefits which theyare eligible for.The 2004 Ministry of Social Development (MSD) Living Standards report identifiedthat 8% of the total population is existing with a living standard of severe hardship (asmeasured by the Economic Living Standard Index). 1 The report also found that 40% ofMāori and 58% of the Pacific population were in some degree of hardship, comparedto only 19% of Europeans. Furthermore, “in 2004 the beneficiary group had verydepressed living standards compared with New Zealanders as a whole”. (p 79) 1 Sixtyone percent of the population whose main source of income is a means-tested benefitwere living in some degree of hardship with 26% living in severe hardship. This is a50% increase from 2000.39
Enhancing Food Security and Physical Activity for Māori, Pacific and Low-income PeoplesThere is a strong relationship between low income and food insecurity. In the NationalNutrition Survey (1997) it was shown that Maori and Pacific adults were more likely toreport that they could afford to eat properly only sometimes and reported that foodruns out in the household because of lack of money more often than New ZealandEuropean respondents. 2 The survey has also shown that people living in moredeprived areas reported lower levels of food security than people living in lessdeprived areas. In the SoFIE study nearly 50% of those people receiving some form ofincome benefit were classed as food insecure. Of those respondents who were foodinsecure (16% of the total adult SoFIE population), 22% had used a foodbank or foodgrant in the past 12 months. 3 The use of foodbanks has been shown to be a strongindicator of intense hardship and poverty. Most users of foodbanks rely solely onbenefits for their main source of income and around half of the households who usefoodbanks include children. 4MethodsIn order to explore the issue of full and correct benefit entitlement, a brief literaturescan was undertaken. The websites of the following organisations were alsosearched: Ministry of Social Development, Downtown Community Ministry, WellingtonPeople’s Centre, Caritas, and the Ministry of Health.ResultsThe majority of evidence on the deficiencies in the receipt of full and correct benefitentitlements in New Zealand is from grey literature produced by welfare advocacygroups.“Caritas a knows the difficulties many beneficiaries have accessingsupplementary assistance. Catholic agencies and organisations repeatedlybear witness to this – beneficiaries are frequently unable to gain their fullentitlements unless they have a community representative or advocate at theirside. And even in those circumstances, there are numerous reports of the buckbeing passed to frustrated community organisations forced to supply aneleventh hour back-up when the official systems fall down.” (Lisa Beech,Caritas Aotearoa NZ in The Unravelling of the Welfare Safety Net, 2008). 5In 1993 the Wellington Downtown Community Ministry released a report on thenumber of New Zealanders who were missing out on receiving Special Benefits to“top-up” deficiencies in benefit income to cover essential living costs such asaccommodation and food. 6 Seven years later the Downtown Community Ministryshowed continuing and growing numbers of beneficiaries not receiving their fullentitlements in their report ‘Still Missing Out’ (2000). 7 They found that while anestimated 176,000 households were entitled to the Special Benefit, an ongoing weeklypayment for people who have a deficiency between their ongoing income and livingcosts, only 11,000 received it between 1993 and 2000.The Special Benefit, which was utilised most by those living in poverty and hardship,has been replaced with the more prescriptive Temporary Additional Support benefit.The ‘Still Missing Out’ report indicated that despite having the information, the thenDepartment of Work and Income failed to inform some people of their full and correctbenefit entitlement. 7a Caritas is the Catholic agency for justice, peace and development. http://www.caritas.org.nz/40
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