Child Poverty Action Group is warning that removing access to Jobseeker Support for thousands of 18 and 19-year-olds risks shifting financial pressure onto families already struggling with the cost of living, while leaving some vulnerable rangatahi with nowhere else to turn.
CPAG Chief Executive Lyn Amos says Aotearoa has been moving in the wrong direction on child poverty and is questioning the Government’s decision to make parents primarily responsible for financially supporting many young people aged 18 and 19 rather than allowing them to access Jobseeker Support.
The policy represents a significant change in how the welfare system treats young adults, particularly those unable to immediately find employment after leaving school, training or another form of support.
For CPAG, the concern is that cutting an individual’s benefit does not make the financial need disappear — it can simply transfer that cost to their whānau.
What happens when parents can’t afford to help?
The Government’s approach is based on the expectation that most 18 and 19-year-olds should receive financial support from their parents rather than the welfare system.
But CPAG is challenging whether that assumption reflects the reality facing every household.
For families already struggling with rent, mortgages, groceries, electricity and transport, supporting another adult without additional income can place significant pressure on the entire household.
There is also the question of rangatahi whose relationship with their parents has broken down, who cannot safely return home, or whose parents simply do not have the financial resources to support them.
That makes the debate about much more than welfare eligibility.
It becomes a question of who carries the financial risk when a young person cannot find work and their family cannot afford to support them.
Māori rangatahi particularly exposed
The implications are especially significant for Māori.
Rangatahi Māori continue to experience substantially higher unemployment than the national population, meaning changes restricting income support for young adults have the potential to disproportionately affect Māori whānau.
For households already managing housing insecurity, low incomes and high living costs, another person becoming financially dependent on the wider whānau can spread hardship rather than resolve it.
It can also create difficult choices between paying rent, buying kai, keeping the power on and supporting a young person searching for employment.
CPAG says poverty direction is worsening
Amos’ warning comes within a wider debate about whether New Zealand is making sufficient progress reducing poverty among children and young people.
CPAG argues the country has gone backwards and wants poverty reduction to remain a central measure against which government economic and social policy is judged.
The organisation’s concern is that policies reducing household income can have consequences extending well beyond the person directly affected.
Where an 18 or 19-year-old remains living in the family home, removing their independent income can affect the disposable income available to the entire household.
That can include younger siblings who are still captured by official child poverty measures.
Government putting responsibility back on families
The Government’s policy reflects a different philosophy.
Its approach places greater emphasis on parental responsibility, reducing long-term benefit dependency and moving young people towards employment, education or training rather than allowing welfare to become the default source of income.
The critical test will be whether employment and training opportunities are actually available to the young people losing access to Jobseeker Support.
Removing welfare assistance at a time when jobs are difficult to secure could produce a very different outcome from removing assistance when employers are competing for workers.
For rangatahi without work, savings or financially secure parents, the gap between the two could be significant.
Risk of hardship spreading through the whānau
CPAG’s warning ultimately challenges the idea that withdrawing a benefit necessarily reduces dependency.
In some cases, it may simply change who the young person depends on.
Instead of receiving assistance from the state, an unemployed 18 or 19-year-old could become dependent on parents, grandparents or wider whānau.
Where those households have sufficient resources, that may be manageable.
Where they do not, CPAG fears the result will be deeper hardship, increased housing instability and greater pressure across the household.
That creates a particularly important policy question heading into the election.
If Aotearoa wants fewer rangatahi dependent on welfare, then jobs, training and genuine pathways into independence will need to be available — because removing the benefit does not automatically remove the need.
Radio Waatea attempted to access the linked RNZ report while preparing this article, but the page was not retrievable through our research service at the time. The article above therefore relies on the policy details and CPAG position supplied for this story rather than adding unsupported details from the RNZ report.
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