decline in in-work poverty prevalence between 2009 and 2012 (falling to 7.6 percent). The in-work
poverty rate when excluding WfF and AS is – unsurprisingly – elevated. Moreover, for the period 2007
to 2012, we can see that the greatest cushioning effect of WfF and AS was in 2009. For the period
2012 to 2017, we find a stabilisation in the in-work poverty prevalence (excluding WfF and AS) to
around the level observed in 2007.
Figure 2. In-work poverty rate over time
16%
In-work poverty rate
14%
12%
10%
8%
6%
4%
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
All income sources
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
Excluding WfF and AS
Source: IDI 2019. Notes: ‘WfF’ is Working for Families tax credit; ‘AS’ is Accommodation Supplement. September
quarter utilised for each yearly calculation of household in-work poverty rate. The thresholds for in-work and
household poverty are as defined in Section 3. Total sample = 89,187 working households.
In-work poverty rate across regions
We now turn to the spatial variation of in-work poverty. In order to demonstrate how this varies
between regions, we have calculated the distance (in percentage points) between regional in-work
poverty rates and the national rate, as shown in Figure 3. Moreover, for further disaggregated
findings, we have calculated the respective numbers for territorial authorities (TA) to illustrate the
extent of variation within regions. In the Appendix, Figure A 1 depicts the TAs that have in-work
poverty rates beyond approximately 2 percentage points of the national mean (7.0 percent), i.e.,
those with rates above 9 percent or less than 5 percent.
In Figure 3, the diamonds display the regional difference with respect to in-work poverty rates when
compared to the national average, whereas the bars refer to the minimum and the maximum rate for
each region that has multiple TAs. There are five unitary authorities without any further TA; namely,
Auckland, Gisborne, Marlborough, Nelson and Tasman. 18 Therefore, there is no sub-regional
18
The sixth territorial authority is the Chatham Islands Council and is not included in the regional decomposition.
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