Taking the seasonal rise into account, and comparing apples with apples, December 2024 nevertheless saw numbers exceed 409,000 - the highest absolute number ever.
There has never been this many individuals on a main benefit in New Zealand before.
Even in the 1990s the total never reached 400,000.
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Even in the 1990s the total never reached 400,000.
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Of course, when population is accounted for, the picture changes. Nevertheless, 12.6 percent of the working-age population dependent on a benefit is higher than at any time since the Global Financial Crisis.
12.6% represents one in eight people who rely on an unemployment, sole parent or some form of carer or disability benefit.
There are 232,000 children supported in these families. If their experience isn't short-lived, they will learn habitual dependence from their parents.
Little media attention is paid to the problem of benefit dependence - not since ACT MP Muriel Newman doggedly highlighted this problem during the 1990s/2000s.
The latest December number was released yesterday. Despite being the highest absolute number ever, the media has either ignored the development or is ignorant of it.
This deep dependence is a massive problem because it fuels so many other social ills.
But New Zealand's longstanding love affair with social security (at its inception a benign and worthy institution) prevents a dispassionate assessment of its evolution.
Once driven and sustained by people with common values, it is now too frequently abused by people whose values are an anathema to a shrinking majority. That is the unfortunate trajectory of welfare states over time - they become too much of a good thing.
The genuinely needy probably form no fewer than the 2-3% that relied on benefits between the late 1930s and early 1970s.
But today New Zealand is carrying hundreds of thousands of people who are quite capable of carrying themselves. And would if such an easy alternative wasn't presented.
Minister for Social Development Louise Upston put out a release yesterday highlighting the traffic light system that National has introduced and reiterating their underwhelming goal:
"These changes will help achieve our target of 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support by 2030."
What about sole parents and their children? What about people who can't access the health treatments and operations that would enable them to return to work? What about those who cause their own incapacity through drug and alcohol addiction?
The numbers on all main benefits are growing - not just unemployment.
Perhaps after forty plus years of over-reliance on welfare the phenomena is now just part and parcel of Kiwi culture. You could be forgiven for thinking so.
Lindsay Mitchell is a welfare commentator who blogs HERE - where this article was sourced.
8 comments:
There are a few elephants in the room here. First, when you have a net migration gain of 73,000 or so in 2023 without the economy growing, then it is inevitable that there will be more beneficiaries and a housing shortage in 2024. That is made worse by the fact that most immigrants are low skilled people from the third world while most of those leaving are highly skilled kiwis.
The other main problem is the kiwi culture and sense of entitlement to be paid lots of money without having to do any work. The expectation that "someone else" will pay. That is what is behind the Treaty debate.
When will politicians wake up to many scamming the benefit schemes. Much of money spent these days is on wants, rather than needs. You only have to look at the tattooed bodies, all too obvious where the money is going. If you can afford a tattoo, I’d question why the taxpayer should fund it. Enough is enough. The time well overdue to rein in spending on needless wants, and false Treaty Settlement claims.
State dependency or dependency on the state is the objective of BIG government.
Progressivism should be seen for what it is -regression in every area it has been introduced. Scripture says if you don't work , you don't eat . Also a father not supporting his own offspring is anathema.
Isn't it time that this support of those who might support themselves, but see no need to, is named for what it is, the ongoing provision of a generous Universal Basic Income to a significant group of our society whose values expect that they should be supported. In this, as you imply Lindsay, they are wholly different in their thinking to those who were concerned to provide a social safety net within a society whose principal values were those of personal responsibility and probity. For all the expressed concern of our politicians, I am sure that our politicians are well aware of this and that most are happy with it.
Grifting is also out there...
https://x.com/2ETEKA/status/1883304160671732190
Thought I'd do a web search on what Sir Apirana had to say about welfare and found: "Sir Apirana Ngata warned of the dangers that social welfare would bring to Maori" and guess where I found it! https://www.nzcpr.com/test-post-534/ ... August 2010 - Some drums just keep on banging. PM Luxon says we need growth but we surely do not need growth in this particular metric.
Put simply it is the sense of entitlement that some people have. Or 'you owe me because you stole our land' syndrome Or those that have no self pride and can't be bothered working, and expect everyone else to then complain bitterly when they think they are hard done-by
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