Friday, January 31, 2020

Food grants 39% higher than at peak of GFC

In the financial year ending 2019, food grants exceeded the number granted during the GFC - when unemployment reached 6.7% - by 38.6 percent.

In the December 2019 quarter alone, over 3,300 grants were made daily.




But I notice (as remarked on recently) that the biggest increase is not identified as occurring in town and city service centres but in an 'other' region. According to MSD:

"The ‘other’ region includes the Ministry Contact Centres and Centralised Services that do not cover a part of New Zealand. Hardship assistance is reported by the Service Centre which granted the payment, so the increase in ‘other’ indicates more of these being granted in centralised offices."
So the majority of the increase isn't from grants made face-to-face at service centres but applied for on-line (using MyMSD) or over the phone. I gather money is loaded onto a payment card and the average grant is around $100.

It's a worry for the taxpayer but it's a bigger worry for the person becoming increasingly dependent on these grants.

Update: Jim Rose asked, "Have you asked for info on rates at which applications were declined?" Not me but someone else did. I've charted the data for the last four financial years.




4 comments:

The Veteran said...

Lindsay ... MSD have clearly abrogated their responsibility to the taxpayer to ensure grants are properly made in favour of becoming nothing more than an ATM machine with limitless credit.

Question is ... did the public expect anything else from a Labour government.

Jim Rose said...

Have you asked for info on rates at which applications were declined

Jim Rose said...

Hardly any declined. Confirms what a review tribunal member told me about people are basically entitled to their annual quota and just asked for them.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Sounds a bit like the way some people treat sick days. What's the annual quota?