Benefit reforms trigger surge in DPB births?
National, the party of beneficiary bashing that has lead a crusade against parents on the DBP, appears to have triggered a surge of new births to DPB parents.
dpb
We’re all beneficiaries now
The drought shows how important social protection systems are. When the unexpected happens – your farm dries up, you get sick, you lose your job, you find yourself alone raising your kids – the community steps in by way of tax funded Social Protection.
Lifestyle “choices”
Last year John Key said that the poor and those on benefits had made lifestyle choices. If they budgeted properly, they’d be fine. Things aren’t fine, and they’re getting worse, which is why a 40-yr-old DPB Mum in Christchurch – facing an $80/week rent increase, because Key hasn’t done anything about Christchurch’s housing shortage – has had to resort to the lifestyle “choice” of prostitution.
Jobs only real benefit reduction policy
You can’t ‘force beneficiaries back into work’ by ‘giving them a kick in the pants’ if there’s no jobs for them to go into. This supposed ‘get tough’ approach won’t get people off the benefit. It’s a cynical exercise in political marketing to make the government look active and distract from the real issues. It is no coincidence that this policy was released a day after the mining policy.
Should the sins of the father be visited upon the children?
When the DPB was first proposed it had a very simple purpose, to allow mothers to leave abusive relationships, to allow them to […]
Cartoon: Attacking the poor
The Child Poverty Action Group thinks that National’s welfare policy is likely to hurt vulnerable children.
Gordon Campbell on Nats’ welfare plan
Dog whistle politics to some, beneficiary bashing to others. But is there logic to National’s policy on benefits? Gordon Campbell asks: Will John Key’s policy […]