FOREWORD A household’s wellbeing, and specifically economic/material wellbeing, is at the crux of ensuring that its members’ human rights are protected. Economic wellbeing typically has its foundation in meaningful employment. Having decent work is a human right, and it affects many other human rights such as health, housing, education, food, and safety. Some New Zealand households have one or more working members, yet still are living in poverty (called ‘in-work poverty’). They are struggling with these human rights challenges every day. A household’s economic wellbeing is often assessed by its poverty status. New Zealand has a number of measures to monitor poverty and material disadvantage. One measure of poverty, the 50% before housing cost relative measure, shows that 10% of the whole population was in poverty in 2018. This rate is nearly double for Māori and Pasifika households. 1 Disabled people are also overrepresented among low income groups; in June 2019, their median weekly income was $392 (compared with $749 for non-disabled people). 2 Society has widely believed that employment provides protection from poverty. However, that may not necessarily be the case: for example, from 2007 to 2018, about 40% of children in poverty were living in working households.1 The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) published in-work poverty rates ranging from 9%-12% for 2018 3. If New Zealand is to meet its child poverty reduction targets or the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, it must do more to support working households that have been unable to escape the poverty trap. Achievement of these domestic and international targets will drastically improve New Zealanders’ realisation of their human rights. The New Zealand Human Rights Commission (HRC) wanted to produce evidence around the prevalence of in-work poverty and the characteristics of in-work poor households, which could help inform the systemic changes needed to reduce poverty rates. The extent of in-work poverty had not been comprehensively assessed in Aotearoa before. As a result, the following research questions comprised a starting point into the investigation of in-work poverty in Aotearoa: • • • • • How do we define and measure in-work poverty in the Aotearoa context? How many employed households are in poverty? Who has a higher risk of becoming in-work poor? What can we learn about other human rights circumstances of employed poor households? How has the rate of in-work poverty changed over time? HRC sought to identify partners on this project and approached MSD and the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment (MBIE), who agreed to co-fund this research with HRC. These and other agencies (including Treasury and the Child Poverty Unit in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet) developed the research questions, project scope, and requirements for a research provider and provided feedback on the method and draft reports. This cross-agency approach will hopefully help to ensure that the research lends itself to consideration by end-users during discussions on poverty-reduction policy strategies. The New Zealand Work Research Institute at the Auckland 1 Perry (2019). NZ (2019a). 3 Perry (2019). 2 Stats