The last National government set a series of Better Public Service targets. One was reducing working age benefit numbers to 220,451 by 2018.
The National government was overt and explicit that reducing welfare dependency was desirable. Bill English was acutely aware of the role it plays in the many negative outcomes adults and children experience.
And here's what happened next. I've picked up the line from December 2016 where the BPS graph finishes, and used the same scale on the vertical axis.
A low of 273,387 was reached in March 2018 - 6 months after Labour took over. (A miss on National's target by over 50,000.)
Since, the numbers have steadily risen (allowing for seasonal variation) well before the Covid response.
1 comment:
I wont comment on the reduction or otherwise, but it was a National government under [I think] Muldoon that promoted a large pool of unemployed as a means to keep wages down.
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