They've tried to put the fear of God into every right-thinking taxpayer by conjuring up the nightmare that if everybody currently on a benefit stayed on it for the rest of their lives, the cost would be $50 billion.
And that's ignoring all the yet-to-be sick and unemployed and pregnant, bludgers who are queuing round the corner, waiting to sign up for their lifetime of sponging off the taxpayer. Shock, horror and pass the smelling salts.
The discussion paper concludes "If current trends in benefit receipt continue unabated, 16 per cent of the working-age population could be receiving a benefit by 2050. The social and economic cost of this will be unsustainable."
It forgets to mention about 16 per cent of working age people were on benefits for most of the 1990s, thanks to high unemployment, yet somehow we managed to survive without marching the beneficiaries off to work camps.
During the 1990s a much greater share of the people on benefits were on the unemployment benefit. An annual average of 159,000 using end of year totals. On the sickness and invalid benefits combined there was an average of 63,784. DPB was pretty much the same as it is now.
At the end of December 2009 there were 66,000 on the unemployment benefit and 144,000 on the sickness and invalids benefit. The numbers have pretty much reversed on the 90s average and the latter number is constantly growing.
The significance of this?
The sickness (often a gateway benefit) and invalid benefits, and unchanged DPB, harbour most of the long-term dependence. The future costs of people currently on the unemployment benefit are far less than the future costs of someone on the invalid's or domestic purpose's benefit. So the situation today is not the same as it was in the 1990s.
Looking at point-in-time numbers or percentages of the population on a benefit only tells us so much. The Issues Paper addressed this by calculating future liabilities based on the current beneficiary population make-up. An exercise not previously undertaken.
Long-term benefit dependence is growing and it grew in spite of the good economy of the early 2000s.
How many times does this need explaining to people who refuse to take off their blinkers and stop carping on about "beneficiary bashing"?
You know I actually agree that NZ can afford to carry on as it is BUT it will be to our economic detriment, and worse, to the detriment of the children and adults who never realise their potential in life. The left-leaning advocates, politicians and media are showing just how little they understand or care about the big picture.
8 comments:
You know I actually agree that NZ can afford to carry on as it
Which to me indicates only that your primary-school mathematics education is deficient.
Where are we going to get that 50 BILLION a year from Lindsay? Because today we are borrowing overseas to cover the whole cost of welfare, do you really think that we could continue to borrow 1 BILLION DOLLARS EACH WEEK just to fund these bludgers?
Of course not.
Anon - the 50 billion assumes that everyone on the benefit now will be on it in future - which they wont be.
Long-term dependency on benefits is growing - but suggestions of the the welfare working group wont assist in stemming this growth - nor will it do anything for the thousands who have joined the dole queue (and the hundreds who have lost their jobs but cant get benefits as their partner is working).
I think the real reason for reducing benefit dependency is that in most cases, kids who are brought up on benefits, turn into troubled adults and increases the level of crime in society.
People claim that there would be a lot more crime, if there were no benefits but I disagree, we already have an avalance of criminals and enabingly people who are who are not good parents to have more children will only increase the number of morally deficit people in society.
We need more heroic, honourable people in our society not the opposite.
Gloria
You can bet a large slice of those receiving welfare are also disproportionate consumers of police, prison, legal aid and medical resources. The cost of these people in our society is enormous and spread across many departmental budgets
Maybe it's time to stop encouraging them to reproduce with DPB?
You know I actually agree that NZ can afford to carry on as it
Funny. Even Bill "Do Nothing" English doesn't think this is affordable: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4019654/More-public-service-cuts-on-the-way
What I meant by that comment was any govt will prioritise what it wants to and find the tax from wherever it wants to. Ultimately IF welfare keeps growing it won't be sustainable. That's fact. But at present share of gdp, plus or minus a couple of percentage points, the money can be found. If I thought the money SHOULD be found I wouldn't have railled against the current system for the past few years.
But at present share of gdp, plus or minus a couple of percentage points, the money can be found.
No, Lindsay, it can't be. that's why we're paying $300M + every week in welfare and borrowing $300M+ every week to cover it
Anon - the 50 billion assumes that everyone on the benefit now will be on it in future - which they wont be.
Nope. I can't help if you were educated at a state school, but the whole fucking point is that it extrapolates current behavior into the future. It models people going on and off the dole, and going onto the dole, then sickness, then invalids or DBP and staying there bludging
Maybe it's time to stop encouraging them to reproduce with DPB?
Maybe it's just time to stop paying 'em altogether.
The problem with the Rebstock report is not that it's too hardcore: it is that it is too communist.
Right now in the UK, Dave Cameron & co are chopping 40% of the benefit system!
We're worse off than the UK, but guess what, benefit spending is sacrosanct.
Lest we forget:
"The Kahui family, living in two state homes, are believed to be receiving an estimated $2087.48 a week in benefits."
That's MY money they were spending on booze whilst bashing their children to death!
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