Sometimes working people get misled by some of the arguments used to bash the beneficiary as bludgers and so on.
Firstly we should know that having a welfare system is vital to putting a floor under how far we can be pushed down in this society.
When unemployment went from less than 3% to 12% over a few years during the deep recession of the late 1980s and early 1990s it wasn’t because workers suddenly had a fit of laziness and abandoned our jobs. We were forced out of working by the bosses and their system – capitalism.
Before that crisis hit benefits had a real value that was much higher than the miserable level they fell to after being slashed by the newly elected National Party government in 1990. Those benefit levels have never been increased in real terms since except for a $25 increase for beneficiary parents this year.
The benefit values were slashed not because they were too high and seducing workers to give up jobs but because the bosses wanted to cut real wages as well and the lower the real vale of a benefit the lower they could cut wages.
That government also saw only one increase in the minimum wage in nine years so its real value dropped from about 50% of the average to about one third. Its real value was restored through struggles by Unite and other unions under the 1999-2008 Labour-led government.
It is important to have a benefit system able to protect us during the inevitable periods of capitalist instability and surges in unemployment – such as we may well be facing in the near future.
Unemployment also never dropped back to the levels that existed before the 1980s “reforms” that were meant to make the capitalist economy so much more competitive and dynamic. The lowest official rate was between three and four percent for a few years before the 2008 world financial crisis and accompanying recession drove the official rates to around six or seven percent.
And those official levels are using a very narrow measure of unemployment that only counts you if you tick a lot of boxes. A more accurate number is the “Jobless” category which is also measured of around 11% of workforce currently.
Both the last Labour-led government and this government have systematically introduced measures that make it more and more difficult to access welfare entitlements.
Under Labour there was much more dramatic fall in the number of people receiving unemployment benefits than the comparable fall in the official measurements of unemployment that was a direct consequence of the “active” case management of people off their entitlements.
This has continued under National with increased requirements for women with children of a certain age to make themselves available for full or part-time work. The bureaucratic nightmare of repeated form filling and participation in useless training is used to just bully and harass people into giving up. Benefits gets cancelled immediately for the most trivial and bureaucratic reasons but mistakes by WINZ take months to correct.
The net result is that the percentage of the working age population receiving any type of benefit (unemployment, sickness, invalid, sole parent) has been cut from over 13% in the late 1990s to less than 8% today when the unemployment rate has only fallen from around eight to six percent.
Getting that 3% of the working age population (about 110,000 people) off benefits essentially has just removed about a billion dollars a year from working class communities. It is reflected in overcrowded homes, people living in garages or on the street, kids staying at home longer, poor health, poor nutrition.
That billion dollars saved isn’t going to the likes of you and me. It is being used by a big business government to hand out favours to their big business friends. And of course their is always enough for the police, prisons, military and spies to protect their system.
I am more and more convinced that the only solution is to move to a universal basic income so that in a sense everyone has a “benefit” as of right from society and particular groups can no longer be stigmatised.
“I am more and more convinced that the only solution is to move to a universal basic income so that in a sense everyone has a “benefit” as of right from society”
Totally agree. Our economic system is based on the premise that everyone collects an income as money flows through the system through the means of a job but we will never have enough jobs for everyone due to new technology etc so everyone needs to get a living wage out of the economy through some other means.
Problem is that a huge number of New Zealanders are very backward in their thinking and couldn’t even contemplate such an idea.
You are right about the vast majority of New Zealander’s being unable to imagine a UBI. Am wondering about approaching it from the angle that the economy is part of our Commons and thus belongs to us all. Money needs to come back to earth to circulate. Those who accululate it to play winners and losers games, must shift to using tiddlywinks or something.
And the UIB is beneficial to all as this research shows:
http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/the-town-where-everyone-got-free-money/
It’s in the pipeline, guys. 😀 But it’s intended to be much better than just basic. You can’t change perceptions overnight. We have been indoctrinated for too many years. Good times are creeping in very quietly, promise!
And this is how they changed the so-called Medical Appeal Board (MAB) process, to make it yet harder to qualify for a benefit on health grounds or inability to work, that is if a WINZ case manager makes an unacceptable decision, which a client feels he or she needs to appeal:
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/mab-process-how-msd-discretely-changed-it-further-disadvantaging-clients-nzsjb-18-03-15.pdf
A post covering the same, plus links to relevant info:
http://accforum.org/forums/index.php?/topic/17116-the-medical-appeal-board-how-msd-and-winz-have-secretely-changed-the-process/
The “info pack” released for MAB panel members in July 2013:
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/medical-appeals-board-board-members-information-pack-for-release-july-2013.pdf
It requires a bit of study to understand what the issues are, but the post to be found under the links above do anyway explain it.
Here is more of interest:
http://accforum.org/forums/index.php?/topic/15463-designated-doctors-%e2%80%93-used-by-work-and-income-some-also-used-by-acc/
This government presents the wider, ill informed public the image of helping and supporting those on benefits, in reality they make so many more efforts for people to get discouraged getting their entitlements, also using some questionable “designated doctors”. But those familiar with ACC know enough about certain “hatchet doctors”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNkN3DW1W6s
They are now very sophisticated with their agendas, and sadly too many who are not affected fall for the propaganda. But many leave benefits, or drop out, and do NOT go into any work.
I just love how Key likes to conveniently forget about his upbringing by the state & our taxes. Why wasn’t his father chased up & hounded by winz for child support.
Why wasn’t his father chased up & hounded by winz for child support.
Probably because he died shortly after he left the family. Yeah, I looked it up.
Mike
you are so right and the union movement have failed to explain to working people how important a good welfare safety net is.
“Both the last Labour-led government and this government have systematically introduced measures that make it more and more difficult to access welfare entitlements”
Just look at working for families- losing hours of work in a recession or earth quake can mean a big cut in tax credits for the children- the unions should have seen the dangers of the discriminatory design of this major welfare programme that is supposed to protect children.
Ironic then that the undermining of NZ;s working conditions during the 90’s was in large part caused by the addition of 50% to the global workforce when China finally abandoned the socialist system.
A system which had caused so much destruction and suffering in that land, just as it has everywhere else.
I think there is considerable hope in the Labour Party’s commission on the Future of Work.
And I am getting quite a lot of encouragement from various politicians in some work described briefly in my 7 minute video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RZ7W-W2Pt4
perce@harpham.co.nz
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