The Welfare Working Group Options Report

The WWG report is very long and laced with tens and tens of options. Some sound and some silly. But they seem resigned to putting up everything bar the kitchen sink. There are various media reports which attempt to pick out what each author considers the main options.

Stuff.

The NZ Herald.

Otago Daily Times.

The mistruths from the left start.

Sue Bradford:

By using figures that assume people on the DPB and Invalid's Benefit, will stay on them for the rest of their lives, assumptions are made about welfare costs that are completely biased and unrealistic.

The assumptions are based on the actual average time that DPB and IB recipients stay on a benefit.

This is what the report says;

For someone currently on a benefit, it is estimated that the total cost of all future benefit payments will be $192,000 for a person on the Invalid’s Benefit and $161,000 for someone on the Domestic Purposes Benefit, compared to $65,000 for a person on the Unemployment Benefit.

I only had time to read the executive summary yesterday. There are options covering time limits, work-testing the DPB much earlier than is currently the case, investing up front based on what a beneficiary is likely to cost if left to their own devices, a far more paternalistic approach to teenagers, changing abatement rates, supplementary assistance regimes etc. Responses are invited if you feel inclined to. (Try this link later)

The alternative group's report is due out December 9.