US unemployment reaches 9.7% and males take the biggest hit

On the same day that the Washington Post breaks the news that US unemployment has risen to 9.7%, the NCPA has run a piece about the growth of female employment;

Women held 49.83 percent of the nation's 132 million jobs in June and they're gaining the vast majority of jobs in the few sectors of the economy that are growing, according to the most recent numbers available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, says reporter Dennis Cauchon.

That's a record high for a measure that's been growing steadily for decades and accelerating during the recession. At the current pace, women will become a majority of workers in October or November.

From December 2007 to June 2009:

* Men have lost 74 percent of the 6.4 million jobs erased since the recession began in December 2007.
* Men have lost more than 3 million jobs in construction and manufacturing alone.

The only parts of the economy still growing -- health care, education and government -- have traditionally hired mostly women, says Cauchon. That dominance has increased in part because federal stimulus funding directed money to education, health care and state and local governments.

How does that compare to NZ?

Obviously our unemployment rate is much lower at 6 percent.

Over the last three June quarters (2007 - 2009) the numbers (millions) employed have looked like this;

Males 1.163 1.166 1.159
Females 1.009 1.023 1.011

So although when unemployment information was last released it was noted that females were taking the brunt, over two years they have actually fared better.

Looking at which sectors have continued to grow over the same period they are, as in the US, health and community services, and education. The only other sector to grow was business and financial services.

The sectors that actually generate wealth - construction, manufacturing, agriculture, forestry and fishing all shrank.

It's a worry.

(David has just objected that health indirectly creates wealth. Can't generate wealth without a healthy workforce he says. Can't pay for health without any wealth generation, I counter. I don't think it's a chicken and egg scenario. The wealth comes first. That is observable historically.)

Beat-up headline?

There isn't time to delve very deeply into this right now but the following headline has got to be the biggest beat-up;

DIY disasters kill nearly 600 a year

An average of 11 people died each week from accidents in their homes in the year to the end of June - an annual total of 573. That compares with the road toll last year of 366.

That is amazing. In 1993 157 people died from accidents at home (1996 NZ Yearbook, p180). The number has quadrupled? (Population in 1993 = 3.48 million.)

Unfortunately many elderly die from falls in the home. After age 75 the rate for women is higher than for men. Are they included in the 11 deaths per week?

Also the ACC website says ;

More people are injured at home than anywhere else in New Zealand. Children factor highly in our home injury statistics.....Each year 700 children cut themselves badly enough at home to be admitted to hospital.

Assuming there is some connection between injury and death some of the 11 deaths per week could include children.

No, I am very suspicious of this statistic. But it is Safety Week after all. Got to scare the sheeple.

Time to do nothing

Is the war on child abuse any different from the war on drugs or the war on poverty? They all feature escalating measures and escalating failure. Yet governments doggedly persist, doubtless justifying their actions internally by speculating that the statistics would be even worse if they did nothing (and that they need to be seen to be doing something or what rationale for their very existence?)

Pause for a moment. In the war on child abuse, what would a do nothing approach look like? Governments doing nothing sounds like a unthinkable abdication of responsibility. That is what you have been trained to think.

Fact; Most of the abuse goes on in beneficiary homes. Who or what created these homes? The bricks and mortar is often owned by the government and the occupants are paid to live by the government. These are homes created by social policy.

So the first do-nothing action could be to stop paying people to have babies they have no means of supporting. That would reduce the number of people doing just that, although some babies would still be born into untenable situations. Left to find their own solutions, people would sort out themselves who was best placed to care for and raise the child. That already goes on to a certain degree. Without any state benefits only the most motivated would be stepping forward. The most motivated would coincidentally also provide the best care.

Where children are still being subjected to abuse or neglect, the state then has a role in protecting that child's legal rights - but that's all.

Instead we get the Minister of do-something, as well as keeping current social policy settings unchanged, launching a whole new campaign against child abuse. She says she doesn't care what it costs. If it saves just one child it will be worth it (heard on TV last night). Of course Pharmac doesn't have the luxury of sitting around the table deciding which medicines to fund on this basis - just the Minister of do-something. Then she says it would appear a whole new generation of parents needs to relearn that shaking babies is dangerous. That means this exercise has to be repeated every generation because the state has to step in and do what the failed parent-educator (also a product of the state) doesn't.

You see. It's just a nauseatingly endless self-feeding cycle. Paula Bennett is like the mouse inside the tread wheel. Time to get off.

OECD warns against long-duration single-parent benefits

Media Release
OECD WARNS AGAINST LONG-DURATION, SINGLE-PARENT BENEFITS
Thursday, September 3, 2009

The OECD has just released a comparative report about child well-being across developed countries. New Zealand is described as having high child poverty rates.

Welfare Commentator Lindsay Mitchell said that while some child advocacy groups interpreted that as a signal more should be spent on welfare, that isn't what the report is recommending. Mitchell quoted the report as saying, "Some countries spend considerable amounts on long-duration single-parent benefits. There is little or no evidence that these benefits positively influence child well-being. Durations could be reduced and resources concentrated on improving family income during the early part of the life cycle for those children."

This means adopting a work-based anti-poverty strategy. The report looks at the effect of time-limiting and a number of welfare-to-work US programmes by reviewing the available research and finds;

"Overall, employment promotion pilots linked to making work pay have positive but modest short-term effects on some important dimensions of child well-being, in addition to reducing child poverty. Whether these effects can be sustained into better long-term outcomes for children from permanent polices remains unclear."

So those countries that have focussed their efforts on getting single parents into work have not seen a detrimental effect on children.

The report specifically mentions Norway where in 1998 benefits were raised by a fifth BUT a work or education test was imposed on the parent when the youngest child turned 3. Mitchell noted, "In NZ we wait until the youngest child turns 18. This is bad policy. "

As the report points out, "The indirect evidence from United States welfare-to-work experiments suggest that eligibility for such benefits until late in the child life cycle does not have positive effects on child well-being."

Mitchell says that the government should be paying attention to what the OECD advises. "After all, they campaigned on work testing the DPB."

More pathetic paternalism

Unless the NZ Herald has made a significant mistake a health economist is truly barking. He has proposed a Smartcard system for beneficiary and WFF recipients that "attract the subsidies of about $5 a week per child" to be used on healthy food.

We are talking about 300,000 children at the very least.

He estimated this would cost the Government around $100,000 a year.

Very strange maths. I figure it would cost $78 million. Perhaps he has worked in some 'benefits' from healthy eating by way of health savings. Or perhaps he is referring to the annual administration costs. Or perhaps this is the reimbursement he wants for continuing to mastermind such magnificent, medical intervention.

Whatever the reason behind this somewhat 'conservative' estimate, the suggestion is no more than another pathetically, paternalistic nanny-state-doing-your-thinking-for-you idea.

I thought he said he had bigger fish to fry?

What a lot of BS this is. Key says he hasn't got time for trivial stuff like the anti-smacking law but has the time to ponce about currying favour with the feminists.

Where is the Child Support review going?

A couple of weeks back there was some media reporting about the costs of raising children. The costs seemed over-inflated to me. As the research has been produced in advance of a review of the child support system a closer look is required.

The 21 page report, prepared by the IRD, uses a method used by Australia to estimate child costs as part of its child support reforms. The data comes from the Statistics NZ Household economic survey and comprises 930 households.

The actual formulas are hieroglyphics to me but here is what they produce;

The thing that is immediately obvious is the average low income is actually quite high when one considers that a majority of custodial parents are on a benefit. The lower the income, the higher the proportion the cost of raising a child becomes. If on an income of $450 a week the proportion rose to 24 percent the cost would be $108. But I am only guessing. Why didn't they model as low as that given the purpose of the research? Or wasn't their sample representative of typically low income custodial/liable parents? In which case, was it relevant?

Around half of the paying parents (approx 66,000) currently pay the minimum $14 per week (2007). The maximum level of child support payable (for the year ending 3/2010) is$577 per week, which just happens to be very close to the combined cost of two children (one in each age bracket) at an average income.

So beyond concluding that child support payments as they stand do not realistically meet the costs of raising children as modelled in this paper, it is very difficult to see where this review is going. You can't get blood out of a stone. Upping demands on higher income liable parents or upping state support?

The problematic child support system is anyway largely a side effect of the DPB. That's where attention needs to be focussed.

Paying for other people's choices

Paying for other people's choices. Where will it end?

Last week the Families Commission proposed that child support payments for custodial parents on a benefit should go directly to those parents instead of to the IRD to offset the welfare costs to the taxpayer. With some minor and conservative adjustment to 2006 figures that would mean each custodial parent getting an average income boost of $2,222 per annum and the taxpayer paying an extra $200 million per annum.

So the beneficiary custodial parent gets a rise, the liable parent is no worse off, while the taxpayer picks up the tab. (Or some other service is cut.) Of course father activists are all for it. They shouldn't be.

At a low income, a boost of $42 per week is quite substantial. In reality many will only get $14 extra because the paying parent is either also on a benefit or in low income work. But at the other end of the scale mothers with ex's on better incomes will receive substantially more. That means if the relationship is rocky, leaving becomes a better prospect than it is now. That means the incentive to go on the DPB rises again. More people go on it. More men suffer the consequences.

National is on record as saying New Zealand should consider doing just this. They would certainly get the support of the Maori Party.

Prescription-only pseudoephedrine creates more problems

Making pseudoephedrine prescription-only is back in the media today. Having discussed this with my on-call pharmacist he puts up another objection. MacDoctor, quoted in the article, will no doubt also have considered this angle.

P cooks and crooks (or their agents) currently buy pseudoephedrine at the chemist. They are purchasing it in a peopled and open environment. There is safety and steadfastness in numbers. The potential for trouble caused by a refusal to sell is lower than when the same person attempts to get a prescription from an unwilling GP working essentially alone.

Making pseudoephedrine only available on prescription transfers, and potentially worsens the problem. I have posted before about the Oregon experience. Yet it seems to be Mr Key's favoured weapon in the war on 'P'.

The new social order

Last weekend I was driving my daughter and a friend to a pool (swim, not snooker) party and the girls were discussing why the venue had been chosen. Probably because it is half way between where her mum lives and her dad lives was the conclusion. "----'s parents have split up ?" I ask. News to me. But then most of what goes on in the days and lives of locals is. "Yes," Sam's friend replied."Sam and I are about the only one whose parents are still together."

Maybe I get an unrepresentative view. Maybe more people in 'rich' neighbourhoods split because they can afford to; in 'poor' neighbourhooods they never formalised their relationship in the first place. Maybe there is a large group in the middle acting like my parent's generation. Staying together, happy or otherwise, because they have no choice. Perhaps relationships are now as impermanent as jobs and careers. Or were people more satisfied with their relationships 40 or 50 years ago?

I tend to the latter view. People now have unrealistic expectations of marriage being based on romantic love. Perhaps because they live on a diet of glossies and TV. I don't and didn't, either the first or second. My approach to marriage was very pragmatic. I knew what I didn't want (to be controlled or restricted) and spotted it in my husband. I wanted a highly intelligent partner and spotted in in my husband. Certainly my first attraction to him was physical but that lust stuff wears off over years. Is that where most (but not all) marriages come unstuck? People still seem to want to mate for life but the desire to make it happen doesn't win the day.

I will show my prejudice by admitting that I hope whoever my own children pick as a partner comes from parents with a stable enduring relationship. That is then their template for life. And whether or not you think it important that kids have parents who live together, relationship break-ups are often hellish, sometimes worse than deaths and scar people permanently. As necessary as they sometimes are, they add to the sum of life's unhappiness.

Enough of the Kennedy worship

Sheldon Richman, from the Future of Freedom Foundation, takes an objective look at what Edward Kennedy stood for.

In theory government is supposed to be the servant. Yet in practice it is not the servant but the master. Kennedy surely would have disagreed, and he might have meant it. But facts are facts. When a self-described servant insists on taking care of you according to his notion of your interests, whether or not you want his help and whether or not you want to surrender the necessary resources, he is no servant at all. He is the master. You will be served — or else.

More.

Geoffrey might stay

This is Geoffrey. Named by Robert. He's almost three weeks old. That's if he is a he. He may be a she. Not wanting to over-handle him I haven't really determined his or her status. But Geoffrey is the one who always comes to the door of the box when he hears someone call. And Geoffrey I think he or she will stay for life. Geoffrey is a big clue that Dad was black. His siblings all have markings that relate to their mother and grandmother. They walk on very shaky legs, have tele-tubby tummies and seem altogether satisfied with the way life is unfolding. Our Huntaway, Girl, has taken to sleeping at the door of the box. Being an unspeyed female I think her mothering instincts are quite aroused. David is equally soppy about them.

Are taxpayers about to be asked to pay more for the DPB?

I am about to read a paper just released by the Families Commission about a review of child support. But the following statement from the press release is significant enough to warrant early comment. It is from Jan Pryor, Chief Families Commissioner;

"We also believe it is time for New Zealand to consider passing on child support payments to the parent who is getting the DPB or other social security benefit. Sole parent beneficiaries are among the poorest of New Zealand families. Those with former partners paying child support to Inland Revenue would be better off if the payments came to them instead."

The inference is that the amount of the total DPB bill that is currently offset by liable parent contributions would disappear. It probably currently lies somewhere around 10-12 percent of the total - approx $170 million - but I haven't calculated it for a while (so don't quote me on it.)

Doesn't that proposal fill you with joy.

(Well I was going to read the paper but the link isn't working).

The social welfare challenge

I was further reflecting about the amount of government funding given to the Salvation Army, Barnardos, Plunket, and hundreds of other so-called social service NGOs. Many get the majority of their funding from government.

Imagine the Ministry of Social Development is like a giant construction company which builds some good, but many substandard homes. People have to use the company, however, because it has a legal monopoly on domestic construction. In turn, the company funds other contractors to go around fixing the properties up. But the demand for fix-up is far greater than can be met and many people go on living in leaking, unsanitary and unsafe homes. Sometimes the botch-ups are so bad that even contracted plumbers and roofers can't resolve the problems. But the contractors won't speak against the companies practices because they rely on the company for their own survival.

How is social welfare any different? And what would it take to remedy the problem?

What will Australia do?

Australians are also coming under increasing UN pressure to ban corporal punishment in the home.

They will be treated to all the same misinformation we endured.

School-aged children in Australia are twice as likely to be killed as their British peers, usually as a result of child abuse by their mother or her de facto partner, according to a study in the Medical Journal of Australia in January. The study's authors, from St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, argued measures to reduce the rate of physical abuse of children, including banning corporal punishment, would have the greatest potential to reduce the number of children being killed. Fatal child abuse declined to "very low levels" after corporal punishment was banned in Sweden in 1979, they found.

Two points. As I have shown before assaults on children in Sweden have continued to increase and the UK has not banned smacking.

And, predictably, the media message is, look, they did it in NZ and it's just not a problem;

A survey by the Australian Childhood Foundation found 69 per cent of adults in 2006 thought it sometimes necessary to "smack" a naughty child - down from 75 per cent in 2002.

But such minimal force is unlikely to be caught under an anti-smacking law such as New Zealand's, where parental force for the purpose of correcting a child is banned. The 2007 law won bipartisan support because of provisions permitting parents using reasonable force to prevent or minimise harm to the child, or to stop them engaging in offensive or disruptive behaviour. Police, the law states, have the discretion to dismiss complaints where the offence is "inconsequential".

No prosecutions have been brought for smacking children under the new law, which has had "minimal impact" on police activity, New Zealand police say.

Sally Army says, "Move On"

The Sallies are telling those of us who voted to decriminalise smacking to "move on".

Doesn't look like we have much choice, thanks to National.

What I do have a choice about though is whether I ever donate to the Salvation Army again. I won't. They can just get by with their government bribe money which accounts for 61 percent of their total income.

That's not a private charity. That's an arm of the Ministry of Social Development.

No wonder their theme tune is, "We're all in this together".

Wrong. Count me out.

Offending Mr Key might be a winner

Another of National's big ideas? Subsidised holiday programmes for poor kids. A week in a lifetime. It's hard to get excited about. Unless you are Mr Key who is "personally offended that many children could not go to holiday programmes because their parents could not afford them."

Gee whiz. How come he isn't personally offended that special needs children are losing their caregivers because their parents can't afford them, that superannuitants are losing their treasured night classes because they can't afford them, that beneficiaries are losing their access to training schemes because they can't afford them?

I was beginning to think it was almost impossible to get a handle on what National is doing. Cutting spending one day, increasing it the next; counselling belt-tightening one day and splashing out the next.

But it is becoming more clear. Resources are being channelled into whatever personally offends Mr Key.

Under-representation in family violence statistics

I am still wading through the Families Commission 292 page Family Violence Statistics report released yesterday. Here are two graphs that speak for themselves. All offending is rising, but Maori offending is rising faster. I wonder if instead of asking why Maori are so over-represented, because that seems to cause offence and finger-pointing about finger-pointing, I should frame the question differently. Why are NZ European so under-represented in the family violence statistics?

The DPB - A social catastrophe

This is lifted from a slide presentation produced by the Ministry of Social Development and the Inland Revenue Department. It is a surprisingly candid description of the variety of levels people on the DPB are at. It would be an interesting exercise to consign numbers to each category. Certainly the shape would resemble a very young population pyramid. That is with a wide base and tapering towards the top.

Why? Because I estimate a small majority of people on the DPB started on welfare in their teens - although not necessarily on the DPB. That indicates every likelihood of intergenerational dependence which features on the bottom layer.

I am less certain than the person who produced this table that the two, or even three, lowest layers can be separated out. The 'diseases' of poverty and accumulated adversity could apply to the lowest level. But it may be that the designer had age in mind. Accumulated adversity may apply to those women in their 40s and 50s, who are still not working despite their children no longer being dependent on them.

Those in the intergenerational category may be the young, particularly in rural communities where there is no work, and welfare has been the means of support for decades.

I would put two thirds of the current 104,000 recipients in the bottom three levels and the remaining third in the top two, with only a few thousand, if that, in the top bracket.

As you can see, MSD/IRD fully understand that what they have with the DPB is not a temporary safety net for people transitioning from a partnership to being a self-supporting single parent. They have a social bloody catastrophe on their hands.

Violence risk 4 times greater for female beneficiaries

Media Release

VIOLENCE RISK 4 TIMES GREATER FOR FEMALE BENEFICIARIES

Tuesday, 25 August, 2009

Women who are beneficiaries have a four-fold risk of experiencing partner violence according to the New Zealand Crime and Safety Survey 2006, published today as part of the Families Commission report, Family Violence Statistics.

In answering the question, who was most at risk of partner violence, the survey found risks were considerably higher for people in sole-parent households; Maori women had risks 3 times the average for women overall; women who were beneficiaries had risks over 4 times the average; women living in the most deprived areas were at higher risk; young people aged 15-24 were at higher risk, as well as those living as flatmates or in rented accommodation.

Welfare commentator Lindsay Mitchell noted that the profile typically fits the thousands of young, Maori, single parents living on the domestic purposes benefit, in deprived neighbourhoods, in state or other rental properties." This new information is hugely important because it confirms that far from relieving women of partner violence, one of the original purposes behind the DPB, receiving a benefit actually heightens the risk of it."

"Also significant is that those living in sole parent households have an incidence rate of experiencing partner violence more than 5 times greater than those living as a couple with children. This raises a question about how legitimate the survey participants 'sole parent' status is. Are they describing themselves as sole parents primarily for the purposes of claiming a benefit?"

Mitchell also commented about the lack of attention drawn to this aspect of interpersonal violence. " For instance the report explores the role of drugs and alcohol but not welfare. An admission that welfare enables a lifestyle that too often features partner violence is long overdue."