<p>Material hardship experiences during childhood have been shown to negatively impact development. Existing longitudinal research points to variability in hardship across childhood but less is known about how persistence and age-graded hardship experiences are associated with early adolescent outcomes. To examine such associations, we used data from the <i>Growing Up in New Zealand</i> study, a prospective birth cohort of 6,853 children recruited antenatally and followed up regularly with their families from pregnancy. To investigate longitudinal experiences of material hardship, we applied social sequence analysis to measures assessed at five time points: 9-months, 2-years, 4.5-years, 8-years, and 12-years. We identified four distinct groups:‘no material hardship’, ‘early hardship’, ‘increasing hardship’, and ‘persistent hardship’. To examine associations between hardship groups and internalizing and externalizing symptoms at age 12, multivariable regression models were used for those with available outcome data (<i>n</i> = 4,431). Compared to the reference group of ‘no material hardship’, all groups exposed to material hardship were associated with increased internalizing and externalizing symptoms. In the fully adjusted models, experiencing ‘persistent hardship’ was most strongly associated with higher internalizing symptoms (<i>B</i> = 1.28, <i>SE</i> = 0.21), whereas ‘increasing hardship’ was most strongly associated with higher externalizing symptoms (<i>B</i> = 0.98, <i>SE</i> = 0.15). The findings provide support for policies that both disrupt persistent hardship and prevent families from falling into hardship to begin with.</p>