AT WHAT COST ?

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 226, 23 September 1936, Page 8

AT WHAT COST ?

THE PENSIONS SCHEME HUGE FIGURES INVOLVED. STATISTIC CALCULATIONS. Although any calculations made must be based oil a number of assumptions, it is evident that the proposed national superannuation scheme will involve a vast annual sum. The most recent statistics available show that Europeans, and Maoris in New Zealand who have passed the age of 00 total 149,725, and it has been anticipated that the qualify: ing age for the superannuation will be 60. If the proposed benefit was supposed to amount to £2 per week for each person, which many consider a fairly reasonable sum, the total involved, based on these statistics,, would be about 151 millions, a man interested in insurance points out. At £1 a week the sum would be halved, and would amount to millions. But that, it is pointed out, involves the superannuation scheme alone; in addition, invalidity and war pensions and the health insurance scheme would swell the total to millions more. With no details available on either the invalidity pensions or the health insurance schemes, it is difficult to estimate jthe gross cost of these social benefits. ! The principal amounts paid on account of pensions, etc., in the financial year ended on March 31, 193(5, were:— Old-age, £1,718,601; war, £1,349,447; widows', £311,864; family allowances, £149,043; miners', £67,834; blind, £22,£M>1. Also paid were pensions under the headings of Maori war, epidemic, police, war veterans, the Civil service, Defence and Judicature Acts, and sundry. The grand total is £3,659,664. This year the total payments, according to the Budget estimate, will be £5,450,000, the increase being due to the raising of pensions rates, the widening of the conditions of qualification for pensions and the provision of invalid pensions. It is also pointed out that owing to the decline in the birth rate the population in the future (unless there should be a large influx of young people from abroad) will comprise a larger proportion of older people. Therefore, if the contributions to the national insurance scheme are based on earnings, the proportion of earners to pensioners may be expected to become continually smaller. This might have important effects upon the stability of the fund.