Monday, June 25, 2012

Welfare targets are very soft

According to the NZ Herald:  

"The Government wants Work and Income to cut the number of long-term beneficiaries on a working-age benefit by 30 per cent over five years.....Result. Reduce the number of people who have been on a working-age benefit for more than 12 months by 30 per cent by 2017."
Of the 322,951 working-age beneficiaries at March 2012 214,440 had been on a benefit for more than a year. Back to the NZ Herald: 


"That would see the number of people on working age benefits drop from 78,000 to 55,000 by 2017."
Something isn't adding up. That's because the long-term beneficiaries the government has identified are a discrete group. Those who will be transferred to the new Jobseeker Support. Within that category the government is aiming to move 23,000 into work.

That represents 7 percent of the overall current total.

"Aspirational"?

1 comment:

thor42 said...

Agreed. The targets are utterly tame, and they will become even tamer if Labour get in at the next election.