The brown bar is 'lone parents'. (Unemployment assistance does not feature on this graph as it is considered 'primary'. Check out the link for more information).
For NZ the number is 3.7 percent. Australia follows with 3.3 percent, then Iceland with 3.2%. Before their welfare reforms the US probably would have outdone NZ. (The Ireland bar is suspect. They have quite a high number of sole parents supported by the state. Clue.)
3.7 percent may not seem like a huge proportion but from it flows other matters which are very important like child poverty, ill-health and under-achievement. Matters which will be highly influential in the election this year.
By December 2013 the percentage had dropped to 2.8%.
How come?
The balance were moved onto 'primary' out-of-work assistance. Jobseeker Support.
They disappear off the graph.
2 comments:
I can see your point here (a possible fudging of the figures) but (IMO) it is good that this group is now expected to work (whereas previously they weren't).
Labour (of course) have no room to move on this. They would remove the work-requirement of these people. This would fly in the face of the welfare reforms - one of National's most popular policies.
The balance were moved onto 'primary' out-of-work assistance. Jobseeker Support.
Like I said: renaming, not reform.
Labour (of course) have no room to move on this
Labour has no room to move on anything - because John Key has cooped evert single Labour/Green policy that is halfway popular, by his own account up to and including communism
Post a Comment