WFF - get rid of it

Naturally it has now dawned that Working For Families will discourage partnered women from the workforce. There is no consensus over whether that is a good or bad thing. Conservatives tend to like women to be in the home raising their children and leaving more employment opportunities open for men. The social democrats still believe strongly in equality and choice for women. The second part of the social democrat goal is about where I sit EXCEPT it must not be achieved through redistribution. Simply, if women want choice - home or work - they can pay for it.

Anyway, today's NZ Herald editorial has this to say;

The drop in employment can be greater than the rise in unemployment because the latter excludes people who are not actively looking for another job.

So long as those people are not urgently in need of a paying job - the greater number of them are women and the decline follows a rise in the "working for families" benefit - the figures are less of an economic concern and may even be a plus for the economy in present circumstances.

The trouble is, with WFF, all we are doing is dividing up the pie instead of growing it. There is at least a consensus (barring the Greens) that we do need economic growth. So I do not accept that the figures constitute "less of an economic concern". And neither would it seem do the new Australian government which is promising "a giant review of tax and welfare."

Effective marginal tax rates are a particular problem for partnered women with children, who see little value in working when their family benefits are withdrawn. The Government aims to get more of these women into the workforce.

I remain convinced - though the chances of ever proving my instincts are right are remote - that governments should just butt out of social arrangements. The more they try to centrally plan societies the more they stuff them up. They get caught on a never-ending see-saw of readjustment, wasting enormous resource and energy in the process. A low flat tax and the minimum of social assistance would see people organise themselves into situations that are beneficial both economically and socially.