Professor Mary Murphy:

There is a famous example in New Zealand where they did an assessment like that. It is a called the million-dollar man. They counted up all he cost the state over the years because he did not get the right start in life. It cost the state $1 million in New Zealand. It backfired completely because it got into an anti-welfare discourse that this man was costing $1 million, which was never the intended point. They meant that had this man been given a decent start in life, he would not be needing all of this stuff. It was an argument for investment, not for drawing attention to the real cost. Therefore, we need to be careful how we get at some of these things.