Tuesday, July 09, 2013

Welfare reduction target misreported

The NZ Herald reports on the release of progress on achieving the Better Public Service targets yesterday.

Welfare
1. Cut the number of people who have been on a working age benefit for more than 12 months by 30 per cent
In the past year, the number of long-term beneficiaries fell from 78,212 to 75,366 - a drop of 3.6 per cent.
The DomPost also reports on page 2, "The number of  people on a working age benefit for more than 12 months has dropped by 3,000, to 75,300."

They are both wrong.

The number of working age people on benefits for more than  12 months is far higher than 78, 212. The actual number is over 230,000.

The 78,212 refers to working age people who have employment obligations.These are the people who will be moved onto the new Job Seeker benefit next week (if the reforms are running to schedule). It ignores women with children younger than 14, most on the invalid benefit and some on the sickness benefit. They will move to either Sole Parent Support or Supported Living Payment.

The welfare target is better explained here.


As I've commented before, it's a very soft target.

(Progress on each of the 10 social targets is graphically depicted here.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The number of working age people on benefits for more than 12 months is far higher than 78, 212. The actual number is over 200,000.


More like 3,500,000. WFF. Accommodation. ACC. DPB. State schools & hospitals. Even super counts as a "working age benefit' because it stops people taking responsibility by saving.

3,500,000 bludgers paid for by at most 350,000 odd nett taxpayers. That single sentence explains almost everything that is wrong about NZ