In my columns I have referred repeatedly to the worsening depth of dependency using the sole measure available - one solitary statistic published in MSD's annual reports not typically subject to public scrutiny.
So while I am not shocked by the content of the latest Taylor Fry report, the detail is staggering.
According to The Herald:
According to The Herald:
"... recipients of the main Jobseeker payment [are] now expected to spend an average of 13 years on a benefit."
"Sole Parent Support clients are projected to spend an average of 17 working-age years on a benefit (up from 12.5 years in 2019), but the upper quartile of this group – about 18,700 people – are expected to spend more than 25 years in the system."
"...about 2000 teens on the Youth Payment or Young Parent Payment [are] now expected to spend an average of 24 working-age years on a benefit – a 46 per cent increase from the 2019 estimate. About 500 of them are expected to be on income support for more than 38.5 years, almost the rest of their working lives."
Against a scenario of "record low unemployment" - which Labour leader Chris Hipkins campaigned vigorously on - these increases are unfathomable. Unless one weighs up the amount that benefit incomes have increased by over the same period. Unsurprisingly paying people more not to work means they stay on welfare longer. A child could figure that out.
That was compounded by a raft of actions which included diverting case managers away from an employment focus to checking beneficiaries were receiving their full and correct entitlements; abolishing early work requirements for sole mothers who added a subsequent child to an existing benefit; temporarily suspending medical certificate requirements and the annual jobseeker reapplications; significantly reducing the use of sanctions to enforce work obligations; and generally fostering a sense of entitlement due to gender and race victimhood.
In response to the discovery of the reports, former MSD minister Carmel Sepuloni says she did not recall being briefed on the research by officials.
She then had the utter gall to state:
“What these trends show are an absolute need to create and maintain sustainable pathways to employment … National have talked a big game in opposition and now they need to show us their plan to get people into work.”
"These trends" are the direct result of bad policies implemented by Sepuloni who then kept their devastating impact hidden.
Though it shouldn't be Sepuloni primarily carrying the can. It was the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern who appointed Cindy Kiro to lead a bunch of leftist academics and activists to produce the most ill-advised welfare policy recommendations imaginable, many of which were implemented.
Ardern's unique brand of 'kindness' morphed quickly into cruel incompetence.
As Taylor Fry's analysis apparently suggests, people on benefits tend to have more precarious family, living and financial situations with worse life satisfaction and more contact with police and mental health services than they otherwise would.
Crucially, the longer people stay on welfare, the harder it is to get off.
Lindsay Mitchell is a welfare commentator who blogs HERE. - where this article was sourced.
7 comments:
A sterling example of why NEVER to vote for the Left.
They'll do anything to tie people to State dependency.
I fear the Taylor Fry reports understate the looming problem for New Zealand in the coming years. What chance will the 60-70% of Maori/Pacific Islanders who don't attend school and are rejecting an education have of obtaining work in a workplace increasingly dominated by AI and robots? And what effect will that then have on their attitude towards the rest of society?
All very good reasons to stay off the benefit. It’s a kin to drug dependency, drip drip drip and your life is now controlled by the state.
What an utter waste of life, hope and potential.
'In response to the discovery of the reports, former MSD minister Carmel Sepuloni says she did not recall being briefed on the research by officials.'
Surely a minister of any calibre would demand to be regularly briefed with information of this type. A telling admission by the (thank goodness) ex-minister.
Truly unbelievable. With an economy in dire straits and an education system similarly bankrupt, without a major turnaround third world status is where we were heading, quite possibly still?
But DeeM is correct. The 'left" must be avoided, for all they endeavour to do is buy the votes of the indolent and ignorant, always with others money. Such inevitably will end in tears.
This confirms what I've thought for a very long time. Labour claims to help those in poverty, but they never help people to get OUT of poverty; Labour needs them to be ever-reliant on them.
Is it not inevitable that we must now start requiring folk on the work benefit to hold up their end of the contract. I.e., if you want the dole you have to work. These are some of the jobs that you can elect to take on: pest eradication, fruit picking, scrub cutting, highway and railway maintenance. etc etc. There must be many tasks that are not undertaken currently because the cost to private enterprise is too high. If however, the wages were funded by the benefit, maybe private enterprise could supply meaningful work. There would. of course, be a period of outrage while folk came to terms with the fact that their wasted years in the education system equipped them only for manual labour. But even in God's Own we would eventually again realize that flopping about grizzling all day does not put food on the table.
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