Nat's Welfare Policies #1. Single Parents: "kick 'em when they're down".

The National Party has just announced that, should it be able to form the next government, it would require DPB recipients .... to spend at least 15 hours a week either in employment, training or job-seeking activities once their youngest child turns six.

The outcome of this will be that stressed out single mothers and fathers with multiple children, will have more pressure added to their lives, and that pressure will be passed onto the dependants in the household in negative ways.

The Labour Party-led Governments have offered huge incentives for welfare-dependant parents to get into work, such as Working for Families (which effectively removes all tax on work for these people), and heavily subsidised day care for pre-school aged children (things National would have never introduced). These polices, along with a buoyant labour market have lead to a huge decrease in the number of people receiving the DPB, and now, less than half of the people who currently receive it, have been doing so for over a year.

So Labour has offered the carrots, and it's working for everyone. Now National wants to step in with a stick. This fits in with the Nat's historical approach to welfare policy, which has been to cut the level of benefits available and/or tighten the eligibility criteria for benefits (they did both in 1991).

Successive Labour-led Governments have retained National's benefit reforms, and have continued to increase benefit levels according to CPI, rather than index them to average earnings, or something similar. So equality isn't a consideration in either main party's welfare policy any longer.



As a result, people on a benefit are surviving on a bare subsistence income, and are excluded from participation in mainstream society. So it's no surprise to find out that virtually no one remains unemployed for long if they have a choice. In fact, page 82 of the 2007 labour market report shows us that only 0.5% of the working age population have been unemployed for more than 6 months.

So, the people that have been on the DPB for an extended period, are likely lacking options. They have good reasons, and probably don't enjoy their position very much. National's policy of compulsion is going to be forcing people who are already enduring a situation of considerable hardship, into a position that's so undesirable, they choose their current position over it.

As justification for its attack on solo parents, National decries NZ's low sol-parent employment rate (44%), whilst celebrating the success of the Nordic countries, which have comparable figures of 70-80%. See page 7 of the background paper . What National doesn't reveal is the fact that, these results have only been achieved through a generous welfare state, which provides very cheap day-care ($50 per-week in Sweden) and long periods of paid maternal leave (13 months at 80% of total normal pay). These of course are policies that National wouldn't dream of introducing, so it's a bit hypocritical for them to be citing these countries as success stories.

Overall, it's classic National Party "kick 'em when they're down" stuff.

[edit: it should also be noted that this policy, along with National's proposed reduction in employment rights would result in a wage cut because it will force more people into the labour market i.e. if you're forced to work at least 15 hours per week you're receiving virtually no DPB anyway, so this is about kicking people off the DPB.

This will cause an expansion of labour supply (particularly in the low-skill, low-wage sector). Contrary to what Key says, it won't "lift people out of the poverty trap", it will lower wages for all low-income workers).]