Child poverty

What to do about it?
I just wondered if anyone had any ideas about it.

Maybe start with basics, food and shelter. Why are some children going hungry, or cold? I dont believe parents want to deliberately starve their children or not keep them warm. Is it bad parenting, or is it to do with just not being able to provide. Or is it more to do with solo parents, as two parents can manage better than a solo parent, even if the two parents are poor.

Why is there such a gap between rich and poor these days. Can policy change things, or must we accept that is the way things are. Why should children be born into this, when they have no choice? Do rich people have any responisbilty to look after those less well off?

This is a hot-button issue designed to separate hardworking people from their well-earned money, and advance big government.

Their poverty is the issue of their parents, who need to deal with their issues. Handing out money is a bad idea. Start businesses, hire people at appropriate wages, and educate the parents to avoid drugs and other foolish wastes of resources.

There is a gap between rich and poor because we are not born with equal opportunities or abilities. Some simply work harder than others. The fact that I work hard should not lead to my hard-earned income being taken by force from me and given to the children of people who don't.

Parents who deliberately starve their children are criminals; this has nothing to do with 'child poverty'. People who have children out of wedlock, or who married rotten partners, made incredibly bad choices, and I should not be forced to cough up to deal with the consequences.

Involuntary charity is not charity at all.

Yep. Nuff said.

What do you define as child poverty?

See above when children go hungry and they dont have shelter...their homes are damp and cold. They dont have the basics and they are prone to disease and illnesses. Maybe they dont even have a permanent home. Perhaps the family they are with are staying somewhere they cant even pay the rent. They may need to fend for themselves and have noone to look out for them, nobody willing to take the responsibility for their care.

How is this distinct from poverty of the family as a whole? Are the parents unworthy of care?

Well if we lived biblically then the rich could be wealthy but would also have the responsibility to tithe, give, and be a good steward in the will of God with their wealth.

The poor would be taken care of by the church and those who serve the needy. The church would judge righteously who deserves to be fed or taken care of. Even Paul says if they will not work then they will not eat.

But the world doesn't live Biblically. You said.

These days? There has never been a time in history where the classes low, middle and high classes hasn't been a reality. Utopias doesn't exist. And as long as sin and evil remain then there will always be a poor and needy class. Either by personal decisions that put them their or personal decisions of others that put them there.

Policy can make things better but only wise policies that understand human nature. If you strive to grow a healthy economy then just like here in America even the low class of people is a lot more wealthier and have a lot more opportunities than the low classes in Africa, South America, Russia, North Korea, China, etc.

I dont know about america as dont live there but in nz we never used to have homeless people. Everyone got state housing that needed it. But only in the last decade or so a huge gap has appeared between rich and poor, there are holiday houses sitting empty while theres people on the streets with none.

Before world war 2 EVERYONE was poor so there was not a big difference as everyone went through the depression. After world war 2 we had a pretty good welfare system. But after the baby boomers got all their priveliges, the next generations got nothing. And innherited all their debts.

I think the govt took over where the church was meant to step in, but then people started depending on the govt instead of the church. So not sure what went wrong there.

I think christian homeowners really need to think about being hospitable. If someone owns more than two homes, they really ought to think about why they need more than two. They cant be like secular greedy landlords that only use it for profit or their own nest eggs. Ive worked in places like that...they just dont care if one day people cant afford the payments, cos not everyone can always work....

On tithing I have never been in a position where I can tithe like the churches say. Tithing seems to only work for people that have a regular income thats above minimum wage. If you are on a benefit, should you tithe that money. No you actually need every cent to pay for food....

It is disconcerting to go to a church where they expect every single person to tithe. Because not just rich people go to church.

Not sure how NZ defines homelessness but it was evident in 1864 also.

In 1864 the Otago Daily Times complained that Dunedin had 'reproduced with faithful accuracy the wretched tenements, and filthy back slums of an English town'. 1 In the same year Auckland's Herald attacked 'those abominable nests of squalid filth, the rookeries of small houses in the back lanes and slums of the City'. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ODT18640128.2.14

This article explains maybe what you are seeing.

The Government isnt sharing all the details as
National's housing spokesman Michael Woodhouse has call it a "smoke and mirrors" exercise to find the numbers to fit the Government's narrative, when the housing market is "flat to falling".

The report is understood to bring together figures across a number of areas including homelessness, the rental market, housing affordability - including the rising costs relative to wage increases - and housing supply nationwide.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11992371

You say everyone but im sure there was classes to some degree. Even if everyone by your definition was poor there is always groups that are less poor.

Government welfare systems do just that. They work temporary and usually end in failure. And for those who want more welfare they usually have to increase the debt ceiling for a few more years or decades of a certain welfare system.

What went wrong was exactly what you said. Government took over what wasn't Biblically ordained by God. Welfare type stuff was left up to the individual and church. Government is too easily prone to corruption and wasteful stewardship.

Of course Christians should think about how to be good stewards with what God has given them. But it isnt the Government's role to force people to charity. The Landlord is running a business. What would happen if they let people constantly miss payments? This is why if Government was wise they would defend and promote religious freedom that also mirror the peace and good health of society. Because if Christianity is free to change the culture and the government isnt constantly attacking it, then you will get more loving charitable citizens.

Exactly as to why I said in a perfect Biblical example then every citizen would tithe and giving the church a abundant income to do charity or different missionary programs to help the needy. We may not have the perfect Biblical society but I thank God where I live that we still have that freedom to respond to human needs both foreign and domestic.

Where do you live?
I think the needy is right where you are. Sometimes in your own families.

Hmm dont know of govt is attacking christianity I think some just dont understand what its about as many of the politicans are in it for themselves.

There are some christian politicians but they arent in the majority. And democratic govts do tend to go by the majority.

Not sure about what I would do if I was a landlord and someone missed their payments...never been a landlord. Maybe investigate why, there would probably be a reason like, the person was ill or lost their job. If, being a christian landlord you would then call on God to step in. And I suppose give them a grace period but certainly would be uncharitable to just kick them out if they had nowhere to go.

Most christian landlords dont operate that way, living by faith is very different from living by paycheck. If they do have land its usually in a trust and its operating hospitals, Schools, churches, orphanages, refuges, boarding homes. Very few have private residences they rent out. If youve seen the state of student flats you realise that many landlords just dont care about their properties as long as someones prepared to pay.

My thoughts are the nz welfare system was the best of its kind for the post war generstion when it had to rebuild after the war, but that mean the next generation had to pay for it. So it was rather short sighted, but then govts are only looking 3 years ahead to the next election and promise all sorts of things.

When they had a surplus they could pay for it all, but that was dependent on economy (in the 60s, it was wool prices) but that eventually burst and crashed so they couldnt continue. The good times didnt last. But because that generation remembered it and set the standard for the next generation which couldnt afford it. And had to pay for it.

USA

Sometimes I wonder who is more blessed. The poor or the rich. The poor have to depend on God a lot more and cannot afford all the material distractions. Gods blessings are easier seen and it was often God's way of dehardening the hearts of his people.

In fact my last worship leader was addicted to drugs and became homeless and the rock bottom experience led him to the Lord.

I think more people come to the Lord out of hunger than those who are fat with riches, as Jesus said, its harder for a rich man to enter heaven than a camel to go through the eye of a needle.

The other is that the kingdom of heaven is for children.

So poor children automatically enter...what does that mean for us though here on earth we still need to privide for as many chikdren as we can, if not our own, then any child around us. Parents simply cant do it all. Thats why children have grandparents. Or godparents. Failing that they have angels.

Actually I got more to say about that, thinking, ok do all those children in save the children or childfund or world vision have bad parents? I dont think its that simple, it may be their parents are actually dead. Through war or other reasons.