Tuesday, April 04, 2017

"Maybe to blame"?

Stuff has a headline suggesting that the welfare system may be to blame for New Zealanders not taking jobs. There is no "maybe" about it and the article, with the help of a Morgan Foundation researcher,  amply details why. In a nutshell:

Many of the benefits and supports have the unintended consequence of making work unappealing.
The economic reasons why people prefer to stay on a benefit are well explained but as usual, there is no mention of the moral aspects of relying on taxpayer assistance when work is available.

That would be too hard.

Welfare ethics are however hotly debated in the now-closed 'comments' which make for interesting reading. Here's an example that proves the premise suggested:

When I was out of work I had to do the maths on whether it was worth working 24 hours weekly when I finally got offered a job. With a child under 19 at home, I deliberately worked only part time to minimise my tax burden & get maximum FTC & WFF. Just common sense. Why work for the extra dollars when it's given for free?
Except there are no free lunches. It's a cost to someone and the not unintelligent commentor surely knows that.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

A couple of days ago I discovered that a 24 year old on a job seeker benefit nets about the same as I do working 20 hours part time over a five day week in a role that takes a special licence and some skills. The 24 year old sits around smoking P, is completely disfunctional and is presently unemployable. I was annoyed that the police turned up at my door at 2am on Saturday looking for this person because another drug using shambles associated with them was wanted for numerous burglaries.

I'm not sure I should be annoyed with the wages I get or the rate of benefit. The latter appears inadequate to keep said losers in drugs hence the need for moonlighting. What to do?

3:16

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Sounds like the person on the jobseeker benefit is your flatmate.

In simplest terms, wages get held down by taxes taken to pay benefits. That bald statement takes no account of employers who don't pay fairly, or employees who don't perform/produce fairly.

What to do? Is that a question directed at yourself?

Anonymous said...

Nope, not a flatmate. Person was taken in by wife (a loose family connection to her) and I but after she started P (like a light switch being flicked) I booted her out. The cost to us has been substantial and the family relief when I did the hard stuff was immediate.

Yes, question of what to do is to me to some degree but my main concern centers on giving money to useless (and this person is useless in any objective sense) and criminally inclined people. Political will is lacking to address abuse like this.

3:16

Redbaiter said...

"Except there are no free lunches. It's a cost to someone and the not unintelligent commentor surely knows that."

Maybe this particular person knows its not free but plenty do not. You can't put all the blame on such dumbarses either when politicians of Labour and NATIONAL are quite happy to frequently describe taxpayer funded services as "free".

Just one more reason to despise the National Party.