The best of times and the worst of times...

In recent history, the NZ unemployment rate saw the best of times in the latest quarter - December 2018.  It saw the worst of times when the Great Recession of 2008/09 took hold.

(Click on image to enlarge)


From a welfare viewpoint - the % of working-age dependent on a benefit - this is what the two extremes look like:

There is a 2 percentage-point variation between the two polar points.

Is 10 percent of the working age population dependent on a benefit now as good as it gets?

Here is some context for you to digest.

There was a decades-long period post 1938 (when Social Security was created) when the norm was consistently around 2 percent of the working age population dependent on taxpayers.

Now we are expected to celebrate 10 percent.

Sanction reduction extraordinarily inconsistent across country

Nationally, since December 2017, the number of benefit sanctions has reduced by 42 percent. But the reduction is extraordinarily inconsistent across the regions.

For instance, the East Coast region has seen a 70% reduction in sanction application whereas Northland beneficiaries have experienced only a 17% reduction.

These two regions represent the highest and lowest reductions. Yet they are reasonably similar in profile. Which leads to the conclusion that there is a degree of arbitrariness occurring in the decision-making.

There is also speculation that the increased sanctions are leading to an increase in the number of people receiving a Jobseeker benefit.

Is any correlation showing by comparing the regions? No.

Canterbury had the highest growth in Jobseeker numbers but one of the lower reductions in sanctions. Northland and EastCoast have virtually the same increase in JS benefits but the highest and lowest sanction reduction.

This doesn't conclusively disprove that fewer sanctions lead to more Jobseeker dependence simply that other weightier factors are in play.

I come back to the glaring inconsistency between Northland and East Coast. Why has the East Coast taken a much softer line than Northland? 

Whatever your feelings are about welfare, beneficiaries should be entitled to a consistent application of rules.

Unplanned pregnancies

NewstalkZB reports that NZ has a "shocking" rate of unplanned pregnancies, 6th in the OECD apparently. There is almost certainly a link between this and our high rates of child poverty, neglect and abuse.The major reason given for this state of affairs is that long-acting reversible contraceptives are far more effective than other forms of contraception but not financially accessible for many.

Coincidentally yesterday I was studying the dramatically increased rate of hardship assistance granted in the past couple of years which the left say indicates greater need. It may just indicate that under the changed culture at WINZ - far fewer sanctions for instance - that fewer requests for hardship assistance are declined.

But I noted one interesting stat.

Of 344,771 grants in the September 2018 quarter only 41 were for long acting reversible contraceptives. (0 in December but I'm picking that is a delay in reporting.)

If the latter number increased substantially the former should fall.

Benefit numbers continue to climb

Released today, benefit numbers continue to climb even as so many industries are experiencing shortages of workers. The aged-care sector, and the lack of labour resource is dominating talkback today.

Yes, there is a regular seasonal rise to the end of the December quarter. However at December 2017 there were almost 10,000 fewer beneficiaries than at December 2018.

All of the increase is in Jobseeker Support. Heard on radio this morning Shane Jones' trees will not be planted because there aren't enough people to plant them. Travelled around the North Island over summer and saw multiple signs for workers - apply within.

And the reason for this according to MSD:

Cancellations
The number of benefits cancelled has decreased by 4,136 from the December 2017 quarter, to 35,710 in the December 2018 quarter. Most of this decrease came from a decreased number of Jobseeker Support cancellations. Obtaining work is the main reason for benefit cancellations, however this reason fell by 2,682 when compared to the December 2017 quarter.

So the upshot is New Zealand is a country rich in work opportunities yet one in ten people can't support themselves.

Update: Minister's headline: Benefit rates remain low

Thursday, 17 January 2019, 10:49 am

Press Release: New Zealand Government

ACT and National respond

Socialists describe the junior doctors' strike

"The doctors’ strike is part of an upsurge of working class struggle internationally in opposition to brutal austerity measures imposed over the past decade."

The idea that doctors are part of the working class is a hoot.

So is the idea that NZ has undergone "austerity measures".

This isn't Cuba or France.

This is New Zealand under a government primarily led by a party puppet-stringed by the unions. The strings might break but they will be tested.

Road spikes kill

In 2007 the police introduced a new kind of road spike that, according to the NZ Herald,"....can penetrate all tyre types and are designed to prevent blowouts by allowing for the slow release of air - allowing drivers to come to a safe and controlled stop."

It's ironic that as I read that article a headline is moving across the top of the page informing that three lives were lost in a car fire resulting from a crash into trees after police lay road spikes to stop a speeding vehicle in Christchurch last night.

There is a sound argument to be made for protecting lives that speeding vehicles may endanger. But what about the lives of the passengers in these vehicles? And indeed the life of the driver, foolish in the extreme but young and impetuous. In other scenarios a strong case is made to get these young people safely through to adulthood because their brains don't mature until mid twenties. Are road spikes a legitimate part of that endeavour?

Questions with no satisfactory answers I am afraid.

And pity the poor officer who made the decision to lay the spikes. He has a life sentence of anguish to live with.

Crime down

RNZ reports:

The country's first crime and victims survey suggests almost two million crimes were committed last year, about seven times the number reported to police.

This isn't the country's first crime and victims survey. It may be a new format or design but over the years the Crime and Safety Surveys have consistently shown far higher rates of offending than police recorded crime rates. In that respect the results of the latest are barely newsworthy.

What is of interest is comparisons to earlier years. RNZ did not pursue that. The latest shows that:

The survey suggested there were just under 1.8 million criminal offences in the past 12 months - that compares to about 256,000 reported to the police.

The 2014 survey found:

 1.9 million incidents of crime were identified in 2013
– down 30% from 2.7 million in 2008.

So the trend is down.

You wonder why the RNZ reporter didn't bother to look for the salient story.

Relationship breakdown most common reason for homelessness

Thanks to Bob McCoskrie who sent me this Australian research which finds that relationship breakdown is  the most prolific cause of homelessness. While public perception is that drug taking is the major cause, when people who have actually experienced homelessness are asked, the reasons given are quite different:

"....this research ... shows that people who have experienced homelessness have a more reliable sense of why they found themselves in that situation than the general public.
They cited ‘relationship breakdown and conflict’ as the main cause for homelessness six times more often than substance use (64 per cent vs 10 per cent). In contrast the general public cites ‘marriage or relationship breakdown’ as being the main cause for homelessness less often than that of substance use."

(Naturally public perceptions and research findings are predicated on the definition of homelessness.)

Are talk hosts like politicians?

This personal question arose on the back of my comments regarding the demise of Radio Live.

Hosts I like and listen to are genuine. Others are taking a pay cheque to be a mouthpiece and channel the chat. It's not hard to discern the difference.

Which led me to reflect on a parallel with MPs.

I aspired to the House of Representatives twice (with less enthusiasm on the second occasion).

My action was driven by my convictions about how destructive the welfare state is.

But many successful aspirants are purely concerned with the machinery of governing and representing. They are practitioners. It's comfortable (though not for the lazy) to assume this role. These aren't troubled questioners. They are cogs in the machine.

But what happens when we have too many cogs and not enough questioners?

Worse, what happens when the questioners turn into cogs overpowered by the sheer size of the machine?

I fear that would have been my fate if I had become an MP.

Link between poverty and marital status

This graph is from the US. NZ likes to think it is 'classless.' It isn't.

I have to say though, this graph raises questions. The labeling is confusing.

On further investigation I found it is a conglomerate of three separate graphs.

The blue column is  'Share of Adults Age 18–55 Who Are Currently Married, by Class'

The green column is 'Share of Adults Age 18–55 Who Are Currently Cohabitating, by Class'

The red column is 'Share of Children Born out of Wedlock, by Mother’s Class'

Personally I wouldn't have graphed them together because it presumes a relationship between the columns. Labelling 'Children born out of wedlock'  as 'Baby first' implies their mothers (and fathers?) went on to marry or cohabit. Also, some of those currently married or cohabiting will be childless.

But sticklers for accuracy don't necessarily make great communicators - visually or otherwise.

I'll miss Mitch Harris

Radio Live is kaput

Haven't listened to them during the day for a long time. Not since Sean Plunket departed.

Back in the day Paul Henry was a great morning host (or was that when they were Radio Pacific?) Anyway, before he made the transition from normal human to over-weening human

JT and Willie was listenable when JT was steering but when Willie was in control,  an air of flippant insincerity prevailed.

When JT departed and Alison Mau joined Willie she brought an ugly element of female bullying to the afternoon. Opinions she cared not for were loudly talked over.

Why they picked up Nissen Windell (correct me please for I have never paid enough attention to remember) is unfathomable.

But Mitch. Mitch Harris combined a compelling mix of humour, self-deprecation, true two-way communicative skills and great musical appreciation and knowledge.

By no means a religious listener, many a night I have drifted off to sleep to his thoughtful utterances and  dulcet tones. I'll miss that.

Update: The idea of a radio station that combines talk and music - in this case Magic Talk - is doomed IMO. If I want to hear how people are reacting to something topical I'll tune in to NewstalkZB; if I want music, I tune into Coast. And even Coast irritates when the hosts start prattling. Most music stations like to boast they have more music and less chat because that's what the punters want. A talk/music channel is a hair-brained idea.

Making light of a serious subject

In my recent paper about  Imprisonment and Family Structure,  I touched on the phenomenon of multi-partner fertility and how it increases prison populations.

If you don't know what multi-partner fertility looks like...

Updating artist blog

Just updating artist blog with this pastel of Wesney, who is now the grand age of 15.

Unemployment numbers that don't stack up

The unemployment rate has dropped to 3.9% - a great result for the government.

But since the non-publication of latest official child poverty data due to "uncertainty" and a "lack of confidence" in the Statistics NZ  Household Economic Survey sampling, I am wary. More wary than I was anyway.

The unemployment data comes from the Statistics NZ  Household Labour Force Survey.

I had a dig into the tables looking for any stand out development.

Here's one.

In the Manawatu-Wanganui region, the unemployment rate (2nd to last column above) between June and Sept 2018  dropped three whole points from 6.6 to 3.6 percent.

This should be reflected in benefit statistics, no?

It isn't. The number on Jobseeker Support rose.

I checked out the number for the Manawatu-Wanganui region - a different stat which slightly more closely matches the region surveyed in the HLFS.

In June 2018 there were 8,352 people on a Jobseeker benefit: in Sept 2018, 8,532.

The Taxpayer's Union has also questioned the broader opposing trends.

We can measure unemployment three ways: through the HLFS, through the numbers on unemployment benefit and via the Census. Obviously the last count is too infrequent and time-lags terribly.

Just be aware that the positive HLFS result is not mirrored in the benefit data result.

The HLFS result is probably a facet of the growing working age population and labour force. The denominator is increasing faster than the numerator. But it could also be a 'rogue' result.

No beneficiaries will be forced into jobs

The aged-care sector is asking government to change rules to allow more immigrants to fill the shortage of care-givers. Apparently some beneficiaries are being trained but according to MSD Minister, Carmel Sepuloni:

"...no one would be forced into jobs."
"First and foremost it's about making sure that MSD clients are going into work that is sustainable and meaningful to them. We know that that makes the difference with respect to how long they stay in that employment and whether they end up back on benefit. This is not a situation, and we won't be getting into a situation, where we are forcing people to take up particular work," she said.

So beneficiaries won't been "forced" to take available jobs, but the taxpayer will be forced to keep them.

There are over 70,000 work-ready JobSeeker beneficiaries and another 58,000 on Sole Parent Support.

While the Greens love this indulgence of the lazy,  how does the NZ First/Labour coalition deal with the conflict? Labour doesn't want to force New Zealanders to take the jobs and NZ First doesn't like immigrants taking the jobs.

What a shocker of a government.

Increased cash hand-outs reduce incentive to work

Seems obvious to you and I, but a fact that the Left has long resisted. Their response is always to indignantly insist, "...people want to work."

But MSD doesn't necessarily agree. At least the actuarial arm which produces an annual Benefit System Performance Report.

Below is a graph tracking exit rates among Jobseeker-Work Ready (JS/WR) beneficiaries. The associated commentary notes that recent exit rates are lower than during the GFC!

But notice also the bold type sentence below the graph. Paying those JS beneficiaries with children MORE has reduced their exits off welfare.

This slowing exit rate is further broken down into with or without children:

The report goes on to state:

 Establishing causality is difficult, though the widening of the gap appears to correlate with the introduction of the Child Material Hardship Package (CMHP) in April 2016. Benefit rates were increased by $25 for families as part of this package. 

It then speculates:

 Changes to the accommodation supplement from 1 April 2018 could have similar effects, although accommodation supplement is also available to low income families.

It doesn't mention the significant increase to Family Tax Credits (including the Best Start $60 weekly baby bonus) from July 2018 but presumably the same applies.

Further into the performance report comes another gem of commonsense:

IRRS is more generous than AS and can act as a poverty trap.

This means that Income Related Rents - whereby the state house tenant only ever pays a fixed percentage of his income - is a more generous subsidy than paying part of a tenant's rent in the private sector. 

The "poverty trap" describes what happens when the tenant is disincentivised to improve his income (through employment) because he will lose a substantial portion in increased rent. It's similar to the disincentive Child Support imposes. Not infrequently the two disincentives coincide.

There is a very real concern that state housing turnover has slowed up considerably due at least in part to this 'generosity' (causing lengthening waiting lists and recourse to emergency accommodation.)

This sentiment is reiterated later:

In previous reports we highlighted that the design of IRRS, AS and TAS creates financial disincentives for clients to move out of public housing and into the private market and employment.

Yet greater generosity of benefits and other assistance is synonymous with the current government which steadfastly ignores that the associated disincentives come at a devastating social cost, particular to children.

The socialist approach to alleviating poverty merely entrenches it.

Travesty over child poverty stats breaks at last

NZ Herald reports today:

Child poverty rates unknown as targets about to become law

I blogged about this over 2 weeks ago but far more 'important' issues have dominated. A fine example of how personality politics suppress matters of important policy.

This is the PM's priority policy. And it's based on statistics. It's bad enough that relativity defines 'poverty' but when the relativity is not even reliably measured, policy only deteriorates from bad to worse.

Graph of the Day

(The first bar is 2017; the second, 2018)

Maori now account for the highest share of Jobseeker dependence, reflected in the regional differences.

MSD comments:

We can and must do better to support Māori clients. While there are many programmes and services that are successful in achieving positive outcomes for Māori clients, the outcomes gap between Māori and non-Māori is getting worse. 

Source

Gobbledygook

MSD has rewritten the old Social Security Act. Today they publish some legislative terminology changes.

Example:
Old term     
Attention and supervision substantially in excess of that normally required 
New term
Substantially more attention and supervision than is normally required.
Reason (for change)
Plain English

OK.

Then:

Old term
Normal functions
New term
Everyday functions
Reason
More inclusive language

Is 'normal' ok or not? Probably not but you can't say 'everydayly'.

What concerns me is the time and expense that went into the exercise bearing in mind:

The new Act replaces some outdated terms with more inclusive language and plain English. MSD is updating all its websites, forms and letters with the new terms.

Heavens to Murgatroyd!!

Yikes. That dated expression should no doubt also be 'updated'.

Any ideas for a 'plain English' or 'inclusive' alternative??

Nailing it

Final paragraph from this week's Free Press, ACT's weekly email newsletter nails it:

New Zealand’s real problems are not identity politics, no matter what the left may think. They are that the welfare state has failed. Too many kids don’t get educated. Too many working aged adults are on welfare. Too many are in jail because there is too much crime and they’re never rehabilitated. Housing has gone from a commodity to a ponzi scheme. Our productivity growth is anaemic. With government's and councils’ approach to regulation, it’s amazing anyone still does anything. That’s why we need an ACT Party in New Zealand.