Escaping the Welfare Trap

Bernie Madoff Should Have Been a Politician

The left wing Labour party has a scurrilous record on beneficiary dependence.  The bottom line for the Labour party when it comes to welfare dependants is, “more”.  Not necessarily more financial support–although that cannot be ruled out necessarily–but more people receiving welfare payments.  That is partially why the previous Labour regime introduced Working for Families in 2004 in New Zealand, a welfare scheme targeted at the middle class.  The electoral impact is straightforward: when voters become reliant upon government largesse they will vote for the party which introduced it or continues to support it.  More beneficiaries, more votes.

The current government has made reducing long term beneficiary dependence a high priority.  It has introduced a comprehensive, integrated programme to get people back to work.  A core part of that programme is to expect solo mothers on the Domestic Purposes Benefit and others on the unemployment benefit to get a job.  If reasonable steps are not taken, benefits are reduced.  The early results are encouraging:

Latest benefit numbers reveal thousands of New Zealanders have gained financial independence by coming off welfare in the past 12 months, Social Development Minister Paula Bennett says.   Figures for the December 2013 quarter released today show over 17,000 fewer people are on benefit compared to December 2012.  “This is a significant decrease and proof that the welfare reforms implemented by this Government are making a huge difference for New Zealanders,” Mrs Bennett said. . . .

Welfare reforms included new obligations for sole parents to be ready and available for part-time work when their youngest child is school-age and full-time work when their youngest turns 14.  “This impressive drop is down to thousands of sole parents seeking a better future for them and their families through work, and also thanks to Work and Income case managers, who are doing a fantastic job offering better, more targeted support than ever before.”  Over 19,800 people cancelled their benefit to go into work in the last quarter.

The left roundly pilloried the reforms by claiming that the were a cruel joke: there were no jobs to go to.  Labour proposed instead vast increases in public spending, creating jobs, so that welfare beneficiaries could have jobs to do.  All this would mean is a transfer from direct welfare to corporate welfare.  But the Left is either too clever or too ignorant to concede the point. 

So the issue comes down to a few fundamental ideological questions: for example, does the Left agree that nearly 20,000 people off the welfare benefit roles is a good thing?  To this question the Left will never give a straight answer.  But they really believe it is a bad thing to see welfare rolls shrinking.  In the  end, it reduces its electoral traction.  The brute fact is that pretty much everyone who gets a job and comes off welfare–going through the pain of transition and adjustment–becomes an advocate for working rather than staying on welfare rolls.  Their attitudes and expectations change.  They expect their peers to make the same effort they have made. 

The brute reality is that welfarism is the biggest Ponzi scheme of all.  In order to perpetuate itself, the system relies on ever greater numbers of working people and companies earning taxable income.  Ponzi schemes collapse when the numbers entering the scam become less than the numbers already in the system.  Then the money dries up.  All Ponzi schemes collapse when they run out of sufficient new money entering the system to pay out those already in the system.  Welfarism is nothing more than a grand Ponzi scheme.  If it were an investment scheme, its promoters would be jailed for longer than Bernie Madoff.  But since the promoters are politicians and political parties that will never come to pass. But the unethical reality of the rort is undeniable.    

Politically, the only way out of the vice and the inevitable collapse, with all its suffering and attendant turmoil, is to get people out of the dependency trap and into work (genuine work, not corporate welfare positions).  Thus, the present government’s progress is laudable.  We unequivocally affirm that it is a good thing.  It is a great benefit to the body politic.  Long may it continue and increase. 

Escapees From the Welfare Trap

Progress and Accomplishment

The New Zealand government is engaged in a programmed campaign to get people off public welfare and back to work.  Opposition parties play the guilt-and-pity card constantly in the Parliament these days.  By their lights, untold suffering has fallen upon legions of victims as a result of these benighted policies.

For our part, as grass roots level, we are seeing lots of positive fruit.  Even something as simple as an official expectation of returning to work and getting off welfare is paying dividends. “You have to get a job” is a revolutionary, and liberating message at the local welfare office. Stuff carries a case study to illustrate the quiet revolution that has begun and continues to gather momentum.  In this particular case it was self-motivation that made the difference.  But the wider social and government expectations would no doubt have strengthened the resolve.

Daughter’s words motivate mum to get off benefits

HARRY PEARL

Last updated 05:00 26/10/2013

A 9-year-old’s comment about how “cool” it was to be on a benefit has changed a Huntly woman’s life.  Until six months ago, Judy Wilson was one of about 80,000 sole parents in New Zealand receiving a benefit.  She was devoted to raising her six children but, in her own words, she was also drinking, smoking, and not doing “anything”.  And she had been for close to 20 years. 

Six children being paid for by the taxpayer.  Solo-parenthood as a lifestyle choice.  These not-untypical-cases have been consigned to the very back of the closet by the welfarists.
  Such things do not exist, they claim.  They are urban legends.  To highlight such cases is not only misdirection and deceitful, it also represents the destructive, debilitating stereotyping called “Beneficiary Bashing”.   But for Wilson, out of the mouth of her child came the truth.

“It was my nine-year-old that said, ‘It’s cool being on the benefit because you’ve been on it for so long, eh, mum. I’m going to go on the benefit too’.”  Wilson, 43, said she was “shocked” to think her circumstances would have such influence on her daughter, and the comments jolted her into action.  She started a six-week course at WINZ in order to pick up new skills and followed it up with another, more specific course, in caregiver training for about eight weeks. Since July, she’s been working at Kimihia Home and Hospital in Huntly. 

This case is helpful because it underscores the lifestyle attitudes and changes resulting from moving off the benefit into work.  Factors such as self-respect and self-discipline, coupled with the meaning to one’s life that comes from working have all been part of the mix.

It’s a significant shift from the routines that dominated her life since 21, the age she first applied for the domestic purpose benefit (DPB).  “I’m more active, because you’re committed to work and you’ve got to work for money. This job puts food on the table. I’m not laying back and waiting for the next benefit [payment].”

As of September, there were 7050 people seeking sole parent support in the Waikato Region. The vast majority have been receiving assistance for more than one year and many of them will do so long term.   According to a June 12 valuation from the Ministry of Social Development, sole parents spend an average of 15.8 years on the benefit over their lifetime, at a cost of $234,000.  People who get on a benefit as youths spend an average 18.9 years, costing $239,000.

At a glance, it’s been a similar story for Wilson. She had her first child at 20 and moved from Auckland back to her hometown Huntly, alone. Her partner and father of her children stayed in Auckland, where Wilson had spent most of her teenage years. She moved in with her nan, who needed care, and over the next 20 years gave birth to Tia Huia, Raiatea and Rangi Taiki, Marama and Wati o te aroha.  The children visited their father for holidays and he paid child support, but raising the children – who are now aged between 2 and 23 – fell overwhelmingly to Wilson. 

Without the investment in one’s own labour, and finding that money would come flooding in without cost or effort, had destructive side-effects–alcohol being one.  
Although there were intermittent periods of work, each time she was pregnant she returned to the DPB.

“I was a family woman and I wanted to be with my children,” she said. “I wanted to be involved in their education. That’s why I wanted to be freed up.”  But being free also encouraged bad habits. “I found myself drinking so much on the benefit. Since I’ve been working, I haven’t been drinking because you don’t have time. My whole way of thinking and speaking has changed.”

Wilson’s commitment to her children, even whilst on the benefit, has been laudable.  But to this has been added a vital ingredient.  Her commitment is now deeper and more tangible.  No longer does she rely upon the government‘s commitment to her children.  She is both providing for them on her own account, and being a better mum as a result.  Good on her. 

However, Wilson is adamant it was her own desire to do something with her life that motivated her – not a push from WINZ. She said she had “no goals” when she grew up and knew only that she wanted to be a mum. Now, she’s realised she can balance both.  “I always thought my place was at home, looking after the children, making sure they’re fed and clean. But you can do all that as well as work.” 

And there will be another aspect which the article does  not mention: we have no doubt her mana amongst her community, neighbours, and extended family will have risen tangibly.

Another Jigsaw Piece

Doctors to Help Reduce Welfare Beneficiary Numbers

Social expectation is powerful.  What people expect of us, along with society in general, is powerful–for good or ill. 

New Zealand is embarking upon a programme of changing social expectations of welfare beneficiaries.  The fruit of old nostrums lies rotten on the ground.  It’s time for something different.  The government is trying to set a social expectation that its not acceptable to remain on a perpetual benefit unless circumstances are particularly pressing.  Lifestyle beneficiaries are to feel the heat of social expectations upon them. 

Sickness beneficiaries, whose numbers have exploded over the past twenty years, are required to go to doctors periodically to get medical approbation for remaining on a sickness benefit.  Now doctors are required to diagnose what is required medically and physically to get the beneficiary back to work–which will be a very different conversation to those of previous years.
  This, from Stuff:

Doctors are being encouraged to question unemployed patients on their career goals as part of sweeping welfare reforms, which critics fear will penalise the disabled. But advocates say getting patients off the benefit is part of a GP’s job, and work-focused conversations need to start in the doctor’s clinic.

The biggest changes to the welfare system in more than two decades came into play last month, with seven main benefit categories cut to three. The previous sickness and invalid benefits, collected by about 140,000 people last year, have been replaced with either Jobseeker Support or Supported Living payments.

The working assumption of all state beneficiary welfare programmes prior to the present sea-change has been that no-one likes to be on a benefit, that all really, actually, truly would prefer to be working.  Therefore, to imply to beneficiaries in any way that being on welfare is less than ideal would only serve to rub salt in the wound and be a form of “beneficiary bashing”.  No longer.  Doctors are now required to play a more holistic role–they must embrace the assumption that work is more beneficial than idleness and ensure that their diagnoses and prescriptions and recommendations reflect that reality.  Most doctors are welcoming the change. 

But health and disability panel member Ben Gray, a GP and senior lecturer at Otago University’s Wellington School of Medicine, said there was no doubt that the physical and mental health benefits of working were huge. “On one level, finding them a job is not our job. But our ability to manage some of the problems that are the barriers to why they can’t get jobs are our core business. If someone can’t get a job because they are stoned all the time, then I should be talking to them about what we can do about their addiction.”  International research has shown consequences from being out of work include poorer mental and physical health, increased rates of mortality, and risk of cardiovascular disease, lung cancer and respiratory infections.

No doubt there is plenty of work to do to navigate such a sea-change successfully.  There will be lots of tweaking needed to navigating and sailing skills.  But it is a beginning.  And a welcome one. 

Societal expectations, based upon common sense nostrums are powerful.  When doctors start telling beneficiaries that one of the most powerful things they can do to their well being and long term health is to get a job it will doubtless have an effect.  Social expectations from opinion leaders always do.  One more jigsaw piece in place.

Progress

Fairness Ethic Has Its Good Points

The New Zealand government is starting to crack down on some beneficiaries who have their cake and want to eat it too.  The hapless left describes this as “beneficiary bashing”.  But the measures are showing up as well supported by the electorate.  This is because New Zealanders don’t like “unfairness”.  It’s a cultural value which has ill-served the nation of often, but at times it proves helpful. 

The first group being targeted by the government is student loan beneficiaries who refuse (or wilfully neglect) to repay their loans.  The worst offenders are those who have gone overseas for extended periods and have declined to repay their loans.  They have effectively skipped town.  The government announced recently that the worst offenders–the hardened recidivists–risk arrest when they return (even temporarily) to New Zealand.  This means they are effectively exiled from their home country. 

It is reported that this has prompted a flurry of activity on the part of some of the overseas negligent payers to start to make appropriate “arrangements” and commence repayments.  It is also reported that a majority of the electorate in New Zealand supports the move.

A hardline Government policy to recoup student loan debt by arresting serious defaulters at the border has proved popular in a Herald-DigiPoll survey.  The policy of arresting the most non-compliant borrowers was introduced in Budget 2013 as part of greater efforts to claw back money from overseas-based ex-students, who were responsible for most of the $500 million in default.

Asked whether they agreed with a Government proposal to arrest the worst defaulters on student loans at the border when they tried to re-enter the country, 56.8 per cent of respondents agreed and 39.6 per cent disagreed.  Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce said the poll was in line with expectations. He said the policy was designed to target borrowers who were repeatedly asked to repay their loans but refused to do so.

The second group being targeted is those with outstanding arrest warrants.  There are on average about 15,000 people with outstanding warrants.  About half of these are also social welfare beneficiaries.  The government is moving to reduce or cancel beneficiary payments to those folk.  Clear the warrant, or face reduced or cancelled financial handouts.  This from a government press release:

People who fail to clear outstanding arrest warrants could see their benefits stopped as the next stage of welfare reforms comes into effect this month.  “Taxpayers overwhelmingly say they don’t want to fund people to actively avoid the Police and this Government agrees,” says Social Development Minister Paula Bennett.  From July 15, beneficiaries with outstanding warrants will have their benefits stopped if they fail to come forward and clear their warrant within 38 days.  Those with children will have their benefit reduced by no more than half.

Once again the general public believes this is “fair”.  If people are going to accept welfare payments they need to be law-abiding, like the vast majority of everyone else in the country.

All good stuff.   

Beneficiary Enlightenment

Good Things Coming Out of Bad

In New Zealand we have a perpetuating state beneficiary problem.  The “welfare state” commenced in the early 1930’s and has now grown to a gargantuan monster.  We have people that are preceded by three generations of lifetime welfare beneficiary dependence having never worked in paid employment all their lives.  This latest generation are continuing to walk in the footsteps of their fathers and mothers, living off the benefit. 

The government has introduced a “back-to-work” policy that requires welfare beneficiaries actively to look for work, make applications for jobs, proceed to interviews and so forth.  If they do not, they will face cuts in their benefits.  The reflexive response from the Left, which believes there is never any shortage of other people’s money, decries this as “beneficiary bashing”. 

We are sure that the new programme will have all the normal lacunae and weaknesses.
  Bureaucratic rules always do damage at the edges to some people with circumstances out of the ordinary.  We are also aware that beneficiaries will exercise great skill and inventiveness in gaming the system in their favour (such as getting mates to “advertise” pseudo-positions, just so that applications can be made, interviews “attended” and rejection letters or notices to be sent; meanwhile the beneficiary in question meets the criteria for full welfare funding.) 

But every so often we see some benefits accruing and some progress being made.  For a certain class of beneficiaries the requirement to look for a job and an official expectation that they will get one, coupled with the threat of having welfare payments cut has been sufficient to push them into paid employment.  Six months on they are enthusiastic about their jobs, glad to have broken free, bearing a new demeanour of self-respect, and vowing they never want to “go back”.  Work is usually civilising.  It is usually meaningful activity.  It can and should be liberating. It is a profoundly human activity.

The other day we came across a younger person whose attitude was quite startling.  She was overweight, tattooed and pierced.  She was probably a young mother, in her early twenties.  She was in some consternation because she had lost access to a car to get her to and from work.  She said, “I don’t want to be fired.  ‘They’ have said that if we do a good job, it may lead to other, more permanent work.”  She was working shifts at the Census Helpline, from 3pm to 11pm.  Her eagerness to succeed, to keep her job, and move on to the next one was palpable and contagious. 

We were bold enough to assure her that she was no doubt doing well, and that her service was really important. She then went on to tell us about the language and grief she had experienced from callers to the Helpline.  Despite this she clearly did not want to quit.

Her attitude would have made our parents proud–they who constantly lectured us about the importance of hard work, and who walked the talk every day of their lives.  Having lived and struggled through the Depression, work was a sacred privilege.

The upshot is that some good things can come out of government initiatives that are intrinsically flawed, provided the intent is ethical and the execution is as sensible and practical as possible.