Sent by a reader, bizarre adverts by today standards. But almost a relief from the 21st century health-Nazi's deeply oppressive negativity:
"It just seems like failure."
51 minutes ago
The welfare state is unsustainable economically, socially and morally.
The combined efforts of both National and Labour governments’ punitive policies towards the unemployed seems to have removed over 100,000 people from rightful access to an unemployment benefit.
There was also no significant increase in other working age benefits like sickness, invalid or sole parent benefits to account for the missing number of those receiving the unemployment benefit.In June 2005 there were 120,442 people on a sickness or invalid benefit. By June 2012 the number had grown to 147,548 - an increase of 22.5% or 27,106. I would call that a significant increase.
The growing divergence between the numbers officially unemployed and those getting a benefit are highlighted in Mike Treen’s blog Billions of Dollars Stolen From The Unemployed . Worryingly the evidence around us suggests that a high price is being paid by those who have been excluded from or pushed out of the benefit system, but are not finding work.
Don't even take the word of the team of researchers put together by journalist Max Rashbrooke for his book Inequality: A New Zealand Crisis, which has been extensively toured since publication last year to raise awareness of the issue.
Instead, take the word of Brian Easton, one of neo-liberal economics' most long-standing critics, who has penned a handy compendium of the available data, titled: Inequality in New Zealand - A User's Guide.
Easton appears to have been miffed that, after a lifetime's work in this area, he was not approached to contribute to the Rashbrooke tome. He sniffily dismisses its analysis as being reminiscent of "the drunk who uses a lamp-post for support rather than illumination", unlike the "marvellously detailed" work by Perry.
The user's guide effectively reduces Perry's 242-page work to digestible size, while stopping short of "tediously correcting or elaborating a plethora of statements" in the Rashbrooke book.
....Clearly, New Zealand has income inequality that has got worse and then stabilised. Political parties of all stripes know that and are responding in various ways, to varying extents.
National's social housing foray and its retention of benefits and family assistance through the post-GFC recession are proof that Tories worry about inequality, albeit with less hand-wringing than the Left and with greater willingness to reward wealth creators disproportionately. How we respond as a nation is one of the most important things our politics can do.
But let's start with the facts about inequality, which are not as clear-cut as many have thought.
The budget measure was a recommendation of the Henry Tax Review. The review noted that government-funded research had found that the actual direct costs of children for low-income families were closer to $2,000 for a first child and $1,000 for a second child and that the current Baby Bonus rates covers much more than these costs.[4]
A recent study commissioned by the IRD estimated that it costs about $14,000 a year to raise a child until the age of twelve (Claus,Leggett and Wang, Costs of raising children, 2009). Costs ranged from 15% of weekly household income for a high-income household through to 21% for a low-income household.
The study, Where is the Land of Opportunity?: The geography of intergenerational mobility in the United States, authored by Harvard economist Raj Chetty and colleagues from Harvard and Berkeley, explores the community characteristics most likely to predict mobility for lower-income children. It specifically focuses on two outcomes: absolute mobility for lower-income children – how far up the income ladder they move as adults &ndash and relative mobility – how far apart children who grew up rich and poor in the same community end up on the economic ladder as adults. When it comes to these measures, the Harvard study asks which factors are the strongest predictors of upward mobility.
1. Family structure. Of all the factors most predictive of economic mobility in America, one factor clearly stands out in their study: family structure. By their reckoning, when it comes to mobility, "the strongest and most robust predictor is the fraction of children with single parents". They find that children raised in communities with high percentages of single mothers are significantly less likely to experience absolute and relative mobility. Moreover, "children of married parents also have higher rates of upward mobility if they live in communities with fewer single parents". In other words it looks like a married village is more likely to raise the economic prospects of a poor child.What makes this finding particularly significant is that this is the first major study showing that rates of single parenthood at the community level are linked to children's economic opportunities over the course of their lives. A lot of research – including new research from the Brookings Institution – has shown us that kids are more likely to climb the income ladder when they are raised by two, married parents. But this is the first study to show that lower-income kids from both single and married-parent families are more likely to succeed if they hail from a community with lots of two-parent families.
Age/number of children | Weekly rate from 1 April 2012 to 31 March 2013 | |
---|---|---|
First child if under 16 | $92 | |
First child if 16 or over | $101 | |
Subsequent child if under 13 | $64 | |
Subsequent child if 13 to 15 | $73 | |
Subsequent child if 16 or over | $91 |
It's great |
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280 votes, 23.4% | ||
It's OK - some good bits, some not so good |
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100 votes, 8.3% | ||
We'll see |
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132 votes, 11.0% | ||
It's bad |
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687 votes, 57.3% | ||
In its 2013–14 Budget, the Labor Government has again looked to tighten access and levels of family assistance to find some significant savings. One of the standout measures is the abolition of the Baby Bonus. The Government proposes to replace the Baby Bonus with a smaller supplementary payment added to a families’ Family Tax Benefit Part A (FTB-A) entitlement. The measure is expected to save $1.1 billion over five years and will be implemented from 1 March 2014.[1]more
Changes to Baby Bonus from 1 March 2014
Baby Bonus will no longer be available for children who are born or adopted on or after 1 March 2014. You may be eligible for Parental Leave Pay or the Newborn Upfront Payment and Newborn Supplement paid with your Family Tax Benefit Part A payments.
Poorer kids have three times the rate of hospital admissions for preventable illnesses. They are one and a half times as likely to die in infancy, and have an up to 50 per cent chance of becoming a poor adult, when, inevitably, the poverty cycle begins again for their kids.
Are you angry yet?
Turning away, not even engaging with inequality, as we saw the Prime Minsiter do last week, is a betrayal of those children.
The answer is, of course to eradicate poverty itself, by lifting the minimum wage, creating a smarter greener economy, ensuring that families live in affordable, warm, dry homes, and raising benefits.
AHC
|
BHC
|
|||
AHC ‘fixed line’ 60%
|
AHC ‘moving line’ 60%
|
AHC ‘moving line’ 50%
|
BHC ‘moving line’ 60%
|
|
1998
|
-
|
28
|
20
|
20
|
2001
|
37
|
30
|
21
|
24
|
2004
|
31
|
28
|
19
|
26
|
2007
|
22
|
22
|
16
|
20
|
2009
|
22
|
25
|
18
|
19
|
2010
|
22
|
26
|
16
|
20
|
2011
|
21
|
25
|
16
|
19
|
2012
|
21
|
25
|
17
|
18
|
AHC
|
BHC
|
|||
HES year
|
AHC ‘fixed line’ 60%
|
AHC ‘moving line’ 60%
|
AHC ‘moving line’ 50%
|
BHC ‘moving line’ 60%
|
2001
|
25
|
20
|
13
|
18
|
2004
|
22
|
20
|
14
|
21
|
2007
|
18
|
18
|
13
|
18
|
2009
|
15
|
18
|
13
|
18
|
2010
|
15
|
18
|
11
|
18
|
2011
|
16
|
19
|
13
|
17
|
2012
|
14
|
17
|
12
|
16
|