Inexcusable to pay dole to some but others $490
THEY’RE right. The Green Party, that is. CoLeader Marama Davidson has responded to the announcement by Finance Minister Grant
Robertson that those losing their jobs from March 1 because of Covid19 will qualify for a special benefit (let’s call it the Covid Dole) to help the newly jobless adjust and find new employment or retrain, by pointing out that this shows current benefit levels are too low. The
Greens aren’t alone in thinking that, of course: remember the Welfare Expert Advisory Group report?
Fulltime workers will get $490 a week and parttimers $250, taxfree, for up to 12 weeks (Mr Robertson hasn’t ruled out extending it). But someone over 25, single, made redundant in February, gets $250.74 a week after tax on a Jobseeker Benefit (a minimumwage 40hour week nets $652.50 after tax).
Jobseeker Benefit reduces if a partner’s income exceeds $90 a week, and stops if that income exceeds $449. Covid Dole is unabated unless the partner earns $2000 per week ($104,000 yearly).
Mr Robertson said, ‘‘We know [the Job Loss Cover payment of the last Government during the Canterbury earthquakes and ReStart package for those made redundant by the Global Financial Crisis] reduced the impact on people who lost their jobs due to those shocks. They show how important it is for people to have a safety net to support themselves and their families as they look for new work or retrain.’’
No argument there (though the previous leader of the National Party objected to beneficiaries getting any extra help). But when Mr Robertson went on to say that the fact the payment was higher than the benefit wasn’t an acknowledgement that the benefit was too low, he was adopting the ‘‘Psmith Defence’’ — ‘‘Stout Denial’’, recommended by Psmith in PG Wodehouse’s 1909 school novel Mike (originally serialised as The
Lost Lambs in The Captain in 1908) as the only possible defence when evidence is completely against one.
Mr Robertson usually talks sense, but that’s arrant nonsense. ‘‘Justifying’’ it as different from the Jobseeker because Covid19 job losses cause a ‘‘sharp drop in income’’ is ludicrous: almost all job losses cause that.
The differences between
Jobseeker Benefit and Covid Dole suggest that New Zealand is reverting to the old mindset of ‘‘deserving’’ and ‘‘undeserving’’ jobless.
That might be expected of the National and Act Parties, but it’s sad to see it from a Labourled government. Aren’t all beneficiaries, to adapt Shylock’s words, ‘‘subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer? If you prick [them] do [they] not bleed?’’
Qualifying for the Covid Dole raises questions too. For example, H&J Smith announced this week the planned closure of six of its stores, allegedly because of the impact of Covid19 and an anticipated long and slow economic recovery. But its statement also noted problems with ‘‘increasing wage and compliance costs, issues around store size and scale, difficulties securing supply, new entrants to the NZ market and the increasing dominance of multinational chains, an ageing store network in need of capital expenditure, none of which is dissimilar to the welldocumented challenges facing department stores around the globe.’’
Will the 175 employees likely to lose their jobs get the Covid Dole, or will they be told that their redundancy is due to the company’s longterm problems (like the ACC and ‘‘underlying conditions’’)?
The Covid Dole is, de facto, an admission that Jobseeker and other benefits are, as the Advisory Group made clear, far too low.
A simple first step to address that would be to delete abatement by partner’s income.
But the Government also needs to adopt immediately the Advisory Group’s recommendations about benefit levels, and take seriously other recommendations which haven’t been implemented.
The Government (at least the PM and Finance Minister) has addressed the Covid19 pandemic very well until now. But maintaining this blatant discrimination is inexcusable.