S.S. SICKNESS BENEFIT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 146, 22 June 1945, Page 4

S.S. SICKNESS BENEFIT

Allow me to express my disapproval of the Government's so-called social security. I have a wife and six children under the age of 11 years to maintain and have been unfortunate enough to be laid off work for two weeks. Having paid in approximately £60 per year wage and social security tax since its inception, I applied for a sick benefit for the first time. I have received a warrant for £4 for the second week, (The first week we all have to starve.) To-day an inspector of the Social Security Department, in answer to my question, assured me that if I was receiving a family allowance for my children his Department would only have allowed sufficient to make my total income £4. May I ask why I am expected to maintain a wife and six children on £4 for the first two weeks and buy necessities (bandages, etc., and extra doctor's fees are not recoverable from the fund), when if I was fit and well and only earning £4 per week I would receive my family allowance, £3 weekly, to make a total of £7 to give the children, as the Government says, a reasonable standard of living. Needless to say, I am going back to work, even though my hand is far from being better. The above facts speak for themselves. It's a great insurance for the family man for the modest sum of £60 per year premium. If teaching and talking home truths to my children are heeded by them, I am sure in late years they will be childless. DISCOURAGED FATHER.