Did the Prime Minister say he was going to work with the business and community sectors to create jobs at a living wage for the 27 percent of young people with no jobs?

No. But he did promise to privatise the management of youth benefits for profit via a food stamps system and require sole parents to be in training.

This is a great opportunity for private providers to get into what could be called “the human misery industry.”

Organisations will have power over young people’s benefits and will supposedly provide them with magical solutions – but with funding linked to how many people they move off the benefit, there will be perverse incentives to move young people into inappropriate placements so that organisations can make a profit.

This has all made me think about the contrasting tone and approach towards youth unemployment in a small rural centre called Otorohanga.

There, Mayor Dale Williams is actually serious about the need for youth to get jobs and become part of the working community.

Dale and a team of committed people from across the community work with high schools to help place school leavers in appropriate job opportunities, and help the young people stay in a community where they are valued.

He is far more optimistic than we are about the Government calling for outcomes from agencies who will be working for a cash bonus, because he comes from a community that works together.

This morning, I was inspired to hear a young woman who was formerly on the Independent Youth Benefit speak on Radio New Zealand’s Nine to Noon show.

Felicity Perry spoke about treating young people like adults so they can become competent at managing their lives.

She has very legitimate fears that agencies will simply place young people in any kind of training or work to get the cash bonus, even if the placement is totally inappropriate. Judging by what I have learned from my welfare tour of both islands, “tick the box” placement is already the norm at Work and Income.

John Key said young sole parents would be required to be in work or training. Because bringing up children isn’t work, is it? Seems like child-rearing is work if you’ve got a husband supporting you, but not if you need state support.

I’d love it if all for young parents had access to Teen Parent Units, but I’m concerned if this policy means separating mothers from their young babies. This could cause serious harm to maternal bonding and breastfeeding outcomes.

A better policy change would be to restore the Training Incentive Allowance to support young parents to study at University. That’s how Paula Bennett got her degree, but she has kicked the ladder out behind her.

In his speech, John Key asked if the numbers on young people without jobs was what the architects of the welfare state had in mind.

We need to remind him that the welfare state was built on three principles: state housing, full employment, and fair benefits for people who needed them. His Government has shown no interest in any of these principles and has now committed to scapegoating instead of job creation.

It’s getting more like David Cameron’s UK Government by the day.

At page 107 of the Welfare Working Group’s report (PDF) the Group proposes changes to benefit abatement – i.e. the way benefits are reduced in response to income earned by the beneficiary.

Currently there are two separate abatement regimes.  So-called short term benefits such as Sickness and Unemployment benefits are reduced by 70 cents for every dollar of weekly income in excess of $80.  Longer term benefits such as Domestic Purposes Benefit and Invalid’s benefit are reduced by 30 cents for every dollar of weekly income between $100 and $200, and then by 70 cents for every dollar of weekly income in excess of $200.

The Welfare Working Group is advocating a single abatement rate for the Jobseeker Support it proposes to replace all these benefits – a reduction in benefit of 55 cents for every dollar of weekly income earned in excess of $20.

I have graphed how that would affect someone meeting the current qualifications for Domestic Purposes Benefit (post 1 April 2011 benefit and tax rates and assuming an ‘S’ tax code):

The blue line is before-tax weekly income earned in addition to benefit, the red line is what the beneficiary is currently left with in-the-hand each week, and the green line is what the beneficiary would be left with in-the-hand if the Welfare Working Group’s proposals were implemented.

Every sole parent beneficiary earning more than $20 a week would be worse off under the Welfare Working Group’s proposal.  And, of course, most sole parent beneficiaries will be required to seek work.  The proposal is effectively a benefit cut by stealth.

Other types of beneficiary don’t fare much better.  Here’s how the Welfare Working Group’s regime would affect a single person aged over 25 without dependent children who currently qualifies for Sickness Benefit (again using post 1 April 2011 benefit and tax rates and assuming an ‘S’ tax code):

Under Jobseeker Support, this beneficiary would be worse off at all weekly income levels between $20 and $300.  Of course, many and possibly most people who meet the current qualifications for Sickness Benefit do not have sufficient capacity for work to earn $300 a week, so they will be worse off whatever they do.

The Welfare Working Group’s report is an extremist beneficiary-bashers’ wish list and should be promptly consigned to Paula Bennett’s rubbish bin.

We have heard a concern among some people that setting a work expectation for parents when their youngest child reaches three years or six years may create an incentive for a small minority of parents to have additional children to avoid this work expectation. Should this eventuate, this would likely contribute to worse outcomes for the parents, their existing children and the family as a whole, and make it even harder for parents to regain their independence from the welfare system. The Working Group considers that one component of addressing this incentive is to provide support for people on welfare to manage their fertility, including through contraception and information about expectations.

There can be no other interpretation except that if a woman gets pregnant while on a benefit, she must accept state enforced contraception if she wishes to continue to receive her $194 per week social support. Despite dog whistling to misogynists everywhere, most New Zealanders would consider it abhorrent that the state would force women into contraception. This is an extreme form of state violence against women. The state has no right to control a woman’s fertility, under any circumstances.

Note that the report talks about “long acting reversible” contraception. To fit that description it is most likely referring to Depo Provera (the “injection”) or the Intrauterine Device (IUD).

Both are highly invasive. Both are linked to serious health problems.

Depo provera is especially problematic.

First, for health reasons. In 2004 The USA Food & Drug Administration (FDA) issued a Black Box warning about long-term use of the long-acting, injectable contraceptive drug, Depo-Provera stating [that] recent research suggests prolonged use of the drug may result in the loss of bone density.

Women report anaphylactic shock, severe and prolonged menstrual bleeding, or the reverse lack of menstrual bleeding, sudden partial loss of vision, unexpected dizziness or fatigue, sudden signs of allergy – among other symptoms when using the drug… women’s health groups also highlighted potential future risks to women’s health such as increased risk of breast, uterine and cervical cancers, and the potential for osteoporosis to develop in Depo-Provera users.

And second, because in New Zealand it has a history of being used as a form of social control over Maori and Pasifika women.

During the 1980s in New Zealand there were regular reports that obstetric hospitals with a largely non-Pakeha population administered Depo-Provera injections to women before discharging them, and to women being discharged from or on leave from prisons and girls’ homes. There were also occasional reports of Depo-Provera being a condition for women obtaining an abortion. In the NZ Contraception & Health Study 1986, 60% of Depo-Provera users enrolled in the study were Maori and 66% were Pacific Island women. A study of contraceptive use in Hamilton in 1983 had previously shown striking variations between races. Only 6% of single Pakeha women were using Depo-Provera, compared to 31% of Maori women.

I can personally attest to the insistence and impatience with which pro-Depo health professionals dealt with Maori women in the 1980s, as does Dr Rawiri Taonui. The pressure was powerful then. Imagine what it will be like if the threat is to take the benefit away from you and your children.

Women on the benefit are among the most vulnerable, are in invariably in need because of circumstances beyond their control. The state must not be allowed to use threats of destitution to physically victimise volunerable women, Maori women, young women, Pasifika women.

This recommendation from the Welfare Working Group shows so clearly what an extremist group it is. The report must be dumped – for the sake of your sisters, your mothers and your daughters.

I must experience a more complex universe than the Minister.

The worst experience for a child is when their parents are in distress and desperation because they cannot feed their family or, alternatively, when there is plenty of money but they never see their parents.

These experiences place a burden on children at both ends of the economic spectrum. I agree with Paula Bennett that a lack of hope in a family is a terrible thing, but not with her other comments.

Most people who go on the benefit do so for a short time during a period of major transition or upheaval. They use it as a means of support that allows them to make it through a tough time, and then move on.

Those who do access welfare support for extended periods usually do so with good reason: they might have several young children, have sick or elderly relatives to care for, or be chronically ill and unable to work.

It is not a disaster to rely on welfare. It probably feels like one because of the dreadful lack of social status associated with being on a benefit. But if a parent is strong and loving and supportive and society provides access to health and education, then children from homes which have relied on the welfare system have every chance of having a great life.

I know many children like this who grew up with the support of the welfare system and now make great contributions to their communities. In fact, their parents on benefits made great contributions as well. Beneficiaries pay taxes, volunteer in their communities, and support children and other family members.

It would be nice if there were appropriate, well-paid jobs for everybody, but there aren’t. The problem is as much with the structure of our low paid economy as it is with benefit dependency.

It is complex, Paula! We need to ‘Mind the Gap‘, not bash the people with clichés!

This is an ideologically inspired beneficiary-bashing Bill that lacks any evidential support for most of its provisions.  The Regulatory Impact Statement from the Ministry of Social Development that accompanied its introduction stated:

There is no research currently available which accurately quantifies the size of the behavioural response from these changes in policies. This prevents estimates, with the degree of accuracy required, from being made of the number of people who will move from benefit to work over a year, as a result of the proposed changes.

In other words, Paula Bennett and her Ministry have no idea whether it will actually work.  Other criticisms of the Bill are that:

• It discriminates on the basis of gender, marital status and family status and has been criticised by the Government’s own Attorney General, Christopher Finlayson, as being “…inconsistent with s 19(1) of the Bill of Rights Act and that this cannot be justified under s 5 of that Act.”

• It proposes to force domestic purposes beneficiaries whose youngest child is aged 6 or over into the workforce.  When a similar policy was introduced in the late 1990s it had little impact in reducing DPB numbers.  It also has serious implications for the welfare of children, with a high likelihood of children being left “home alone” by parents who are forced to work but cannot arrange adequate childcare in the school holidays.

• It proposes to force people on sickness benefit suffering from sickness and disability into the workforce with an effective income gain of less than $1 an hour if they earn more than $80 a week.  Both domestic purposes and sickness beneficiaries, because of their disadvantage in the labour market, are likely to find themselves competing for low-paid and casual or temporary work – hardly the recipe for closing the income gap with Australia.

Metiria Turei and Catherine Delahunty have produced a submission guide to assist people wanting to make submissions opposing this Bill.  The deadline for submissions is Friday 14 May 2010.

Sue Bradford has been reminding people this morning of the risks that might come from  National’s rumoured proposal to put mothers who are on the Domestic Purposes Benefit back to work:

‘In 2001 the Ministry of Social Development carried out an evaluation of National’s DPB reforms of the late 90s, and found that:

• The financial benefits of being pushed into part time employment were limited, with part time workers on lower average rates of pay than those in full time jobs, as well as facing the additional costs of going out to work.
• Sole parents found it hard to access childcare that was accessible, affordable and high quality. They often had to take on night work.
• MSD had concerns about possible negative effects on children, including children under 14 being left home alone while their parent is out at work (see ‘Evaluating the February 1999 Domestic Purposes Benefit and Widows Benefit Reforms’, MSD, November 2001).

The idea that mothers are some how cheating the system by choosing to stay home looking after their kids rather than getting out there into the workforces is risible.  It’s probably the policy initiative of some wonk who has not spent enough time at the time share luxury holiday that is full-time-at-home motherhood (or fatherhood).

The Ministry of Social Development’s Statistical Report notes:

Since 2002, almost all working aged recipients of Domestic Purposes Benefits – Sole Parents or Emergency Maintenance Allowances have had a youngest dependent child aged 14 years or under. This included around 47% of these recipients who were caring for a child aged under five years (see table 3.13). By law, children aged less than 14 years require supervision at all times.

About 60% of those benefits went to sole parents whose children were under 5 years of age. The number of people on carers’ benefits (which includes the DPB) who cancelled those benefits because they found work increased steadily each year from 11,055 during 2001/2002 to 14,525 during 2005/06, while the number who transferred to another benefit fell from 8,364 to 6,011.

So here’s what we have;

• Parents, mostly mothers, who are trying to care for their young children on their own.
• A societal expectation that they should be at home to look after those children.
• A competing expectation that they should go out and find work and get off the benefit.
• The occasional attempt to demonise this group by suggesting that years of broken sleep and nappies is a lifestyle done for the purpose of living on a benefit. Personally if I wanted to ‘mooch off the state’ I think it might be a better lifestyle as an advisor at Treasury.
• And a group of hard working mothers who are trying to meet all these expectations and the needs of their child or children, by working hard to use they benefit while they need it to support their children then working hard to find employment once they no longer need it.