‘Shame’ at Work and Income
Every year I have to prove that my incurable and worsening disability has not miraculously gone away.
I fill in forms that advisers put in drawers before going on holidays. When I do manage to work, my benefit gets cut and I get less money each week.
I’m not alone in dealing with this. These are common problems people like me have with Work and Income. This is the reality of life in the welfare system in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2021.
I aman artist and writer. I love politics and people. I studied political science in Wellington. Like so many people, that’s where I wanted to make my home.
That’s where my people were: the creatives and the outspoken. But it was the welfare system, in part, that eventually forced me to leave.
I worked for as long as I could as an administrator at the Ministry of Health, between 2015 and 2017, before my mental health became too bad to continue.
At the time my degenerative neurological condition was progressing. A trusted friend in the disability community visited me a few weeks later and found that I’d been living off savings because I couldn’t face going back to Work and Income.
My friend helped me get in to see them, and get income support. She told me there is no shame in living a good life. But I felt shame, and after having to leave my job at the Ministry of Health I felt like a failure.
Our welfare system isn’t designed to help people thrive. It provides barely enough for people to survive. Ever since the National Government of the early 1990s cut benefit levels, the core benefit has simply not been enough.
When I lived in Johnsonville in an Accessible Properties apartment while working for the Ministry of Health, the Supported Living Payment didn’t even cover my weekly rent.
A combination of the Accommodation Supplement, Disability Allowance, and Temporary Additional Support – which had to be renewed every three months – gave me just enough to pay bills and buy groceries. Just enough to live: by no means enough to live well.
Wellington should have been the ideal place for me to thrive. But I couldn’t afford to spend much time in the central city; going to gigs and plays and getting into the scene.
I tried to make economies, taking buses instead of driving, which meant I had to cross three very busy roads to get to the bus stop. I had quite a few close calls with drivers not seeing me, which I suppose is more or less the Wellington experience.
Every time I’ve had to go to Work and Income I’ve felt shame. The TV screen aimed at those waiting blasts reminders of the responsibility we have to work. The receptionist without fail speaks to me like I am a small child. It shouldn’t be this way.
How can our politicians, in good conscience, oversee and maintain a system that leaves people feeling this kind of shame every day? And they know it. They’ve been told it. By people like me. Over and over again.
The point was spelled out in the Welfare Expert Advisory Group report, published two years ago on May 3, 2019.
The system defeats us by forcing us to live as insecure a life as possible. My Wellington dream was defeated in this way, after my accessible housing provider increased my rent by $50 aweek in 2019, and I couldn’t afford to stay.
Being pushed out of the city meant I was also forced to leave my role as an advocate for the Disabled Persons Assembly (DPA).
To be clear, I amnot criticising the idea of welfare or income support. Our system of looking after the vulnerable in society is a testament to our commitment to each other.
I could not live the life I do and maintain the independence I havewithout welfare or income support. I amcriticising how successive governments have allowed that system to operate in practice.
The way welfare is administered needs to change. People on benefits are as valuable as any other people, and if they thrive so does the community.
Members of Parliament have no shame claiming thousands of dollars in accommodation allowance each month, sometimes to pay the rent for properties they own – this on top of a very generous salary. Beneficiaries of our welfare system shouldn’t feel shame either.
Budget 2021 is a chance to make the most direct change to the system. Benefits must be increased to become liveable.
When people gnash their teeth at a beneficiary buying a bottle of wine they need to realise that the spending by beneficiaries directly feeds back into the economy. So when benefits go up the economy gets an immediate stimulus.
Beyond the Budget, the legislation that underpins Work and Income needs to be rewritten.
There’s amember’s Bill that has just been put in to the ballot by Greenmp Ricardo Menendez March that does this.
By changing the principles behind Work and Income, the culture and behaviour of the agency will change.
I hope one day that beneficiaries won’t be shamed simply by walking through the door.