Keith Ng stumbled onto an interesting point in a Twitter feud yesterday before he muted me about what is the poverty rate for. Are we interested in the poverty rate before government transfers and other social assistance or after them? Why?
If you are making the case for more assistance to the poor, the correct poverty rate measure is after the existing government assistance. Interestingly, most of those making the case for greater assistance to the poor use the before government transfer measures of poverty rates.
The reason why the correct measure is after government assistance is you are attempting to measure whether the assistance to date has provided people with an adequate standard of living. The before government assistance poverty rate provides no insight into that question.
The recent calculation by the Treasury of inequality based on income and consumption illustrates this. Most people are concerned about what people have to spend rather than how much they earn when thinking about topping them up with government social assistance.
Source: Inequality in New Zealand 1983/84 to 2013/14 (WP 15/06) — The Treasury – New Zealand
As the above chart shows, consumption inequality in New Zealand has not changed much since 1984 while income inequality has. Which is more important how much people have to spend or how much they are? Growing inequality is not a reason for more government assistance to the poor in New Zealand because it simply has not got worse for 30 years.
The reason that the before government assistance poverty rate is used is this rate is a relative measure that does not fall by that much. It therefore helps dramatise the politics of poverty and perhaps strengthen your case in the eyes of low information voters.
The better guide is the poverty rate after government assistance because that tells you how much extra you really need to top up the incomes of the poor to ensure they have an adequate minimum standard of living. The before government assistance poverty rate provides no insight into the success of social insurance and the welfare state regarding the adequacy of income support for the poor.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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