The Government has increased benefits with no grasp of the economic problems that some of the poorest people in New Zealand face. If they were prepared to look at the data, then they would be able to figure out that the reason people are impoverished is not a reduction in incomes but an increase in the proportion of their income that goes to housing. For the same reason, mainly the inelasticity, the weak supply of housing and accommodation, these increases in money to people on benefits will mostly go to people who actually rent houses to them.