Child poverty group presses for more govt help as demand for benefits and food grants surges

So   how  is  the  team  of  five  million  looking after  its   latest  encounter  with  Covid-19  and  its  more  transmissible  Delta  strain?

The  majority    will  be  relieved  to  have  escaped  its  clutches.

On  the  other  side  of the  ledger,  the virus  has  had  a powerful  impact  on  lower-  income  groups.

One  lobby  group,  noting the current lockdown triggered the largest weekly increase in numbers of people receiving benefits since the first lockdown last year, says the government isn’t doing enough to help affected families.

The latest MSD reporting also shows food grant numbers near the end of August were double what they were at the same time last year, when Auckland was in a level 3 lockdown.