We’re next.
It’s happening all over the world and started on July 15 2013 in
New Zealand.
"This is not about getting people into decent work [and] it's not about
job creation. It's about cutting costs by pushing vulnerable people off the
books,''
All sickness beneficiaries, and sole parents and widows with
no children under 14, are now subject to the same requirement to look for
fulltime work as other jobless people, although sickness may be accepted as a
valid reason to postpone work temporarily.
Other new obligations include drug-testing for jobseekers in
relevant industries, which is expected to trigger benefit cuts for up to 5800
people, and a requirement for beneficiaries to clear outstanding arrest
warrants.
About 8000 beneficiaries have arrest warrants outstanding
for issues such as unpaid fines. Unless they clear them within 38 days, their
benefits will be halved if they have children, or stopped completely if they
don't, in what is likely to be the biggest single purge of the benefit rolls
since the system was created.
The reforms, which come into force today, represent the
biggest upheaval in the welfare state since the Social Security Act was passed
by the first Labour Government in 1938.
Auckland Action Against Poverty spokeswoman Sarah Thompson
said the changes were aimed at decreasing the number of beneficiaries in New Zealand,
rather than job creation.
"All New Zealanders who end up on welfare will have more hoops to jump
through or face punitive measures as the Government attempts to push them into
low-paid insecure work - no matter what the downstream cost.A Herald investigation into how the changes will affect people's lives in Papakura, as a case study of a high-welfare area, has found widespread fear of the reforms even among those who are supposed to be exempted from the work-search requirements.
"A lot of people are scared about the warrants to arrest," Ms Neho said. "There's a lot of people that have thousands of dollars of fines outstanding." Some would rather come off the benefit than pay all their fines.
The huge reorientation of welfare shifts the focus from the short-term unemployed, which largely left other beneficiaries alone, to a new "investment approach" aimed at finding work for those who are likely to stay on benefits the longest and cost taxpayers the most - mainly the sick, disabled and sole parents.
Work and Income chief Debbie Power said 85,000 people - mainly the sick, long-term unemployed, and sole parents and widows with no children under 14 - would move today into intensive "work-focused case management" with 760 personal case managers to help them find jobs and overcome barriers such as transport and childcare costs, addictions, debts and workplace attitudes to mental illness and other conditions.
A further 1000 sole parents and 1000 people with mental health problems will be handed over to contractors who will be paid from $2250 to $16,500 for each person they place in employment for at least a year.
Ron Payne
Welfare Legal
Hamilton Ontario
