The Maxim Institute has a very thoughtful discussion paper on poverty. They pose a number of questions, and also outline eight different ways you can measure poverty. (See report below)
They eight ways are:
No measure is prefect. I don’t like the income measures because they treat all households as identical in terms of needs, and they are more about income spread than actual poverty. They also avoid the effect of tax, as they tend to be on before tax incomes.
My preference is No 7. Stats NZ already do this – an occasional survey asking if families can afford stuff such as more than two pairs of shoes for kids, transport to school etc etc. This is relatively objective, and measures actual deprivation rather than merely equality of income.
Political commentator David Farrar posts at Kiwiblog.