Children are coming and going between the country's poorest primary schools at a rate equivalent to half the schools' total rolls every year, a report has found.

Auckland City Missioner Diane Robertson has said her staff have reported a rise in clients showing symptoms of solvent abuse.

Changing the geography of poverty within NZ will take generations, according to health policy researchers. So which areas of the country are the most deprived?

The desperate residents of a besieged district of Damascus are expected to run out of food today.

Some British teachers are taking food to give their pupils breakfast every day because they are too hungry and exhausted to learn, says a new report.

At least 10 residents and police officers were injured yesterday as authorities ousted squatters from an abandoned building just steps from Rio's Maracana stadium.

Not charity, just work - the mission statement of Ethical Fashion Initiative couldn't be clearer.

IDFC and Bandhan Financial Services have won the first licenses awarded in a decade to set up banks in Asia's third-largest economy.

A global survey has found that one in every six Kiwis ran out of money for food in 2011-12 - more than in all except eight other developed nations.

A charitable group is aiming to give away a million financial literacy work books to New Zealand students by 2020 to try to improve young people's wealth creation skills.

If the issue of inequality and poverty is to loom large in this election year there are a couple of cherished beliefs on both sides of politics that need to surrender to evidence, writes Brian Fallow.

Statisticians have discovered thousands more children and the elderly living in poverty than have been reported previously.

The number of Kiwi kids in poverty jumped by 60,000 in the recent global recession - twice as much as previously reported.

At a first glance, Housing Minister Nick Smith's announcement of a warrant-of-fitness scheme on state homes seemed like a step forward that was as significant as it was welcome.

In 1998, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich decided to see if she could get by working unskilled, low-wage jobs, a tradition dating back to George Orwell and Jack London.

The combined wealth of the 85 richest people in the world is the same as the combined wealth of the world's poorest 3.5 billion, writes Toby Manhire.

Pope Francis challenged business leaders assembled in Davos today to do more for the poor and ensure 'humanity is served by wealth and not ruled by it.'

The measurement of child poverty is complex, hard to understand and has become a highly polarised matter, says John Dew.

Next year is election year and all the parties have an opportunity to show us their commitment to children, writes Russell Wills, Children's Commissioner.

Children's Commissioner, Dr Russell Wills, wants motorists, the well-off and the elderly to take less from taxpayers so that more public funding can go into tackling child poverty.

Aucklanders are queuing for up to seven hours for food parcels from the City Mission, as donations run thin.

The Prime Minister's reaction to the latest survey of child poverty was predictable but misguided. It is not just about jobs.

Time magazine has named Pope Francis its person of the year, saying that in nine months in office the head of the Catholic Church had become a new voice of conscience.

Editorial: The Children's Commissioner has done well to raise independent funds for an annual report on child poverty, less well in publicising its first year's findings.

A new report on child poverty in New Zealand has been applauded by groups who have criticised the Government for failing to thoroughly monitor the issue itself.