An Unemployment Anomaly

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21226, 26 July 1934, Page 10

An Unemployment Anomaly

The Government's decision to increase the sustenance rates payable to unemployed men for whom relief work cannot be found will be generally approved. The rates hitherto ruling have in many cases imposed hardship and were, as we pointed out a few days ago, a misguided attempt by the Unemployment Board to coerce local bodies into providing sufficient relief work to absorb all the unemployed in their district. It was clearly wrong that the unemployed should be made to suffer because local bodies were unwilling or unable to find work for them. But the new rates, although they remove one abuse, perpetuate another. The rate payable in the four main centres is still substantially higher than the rate payable in the smaller towns and country districts. The differentiation is indefensible. Why, for instance, should the rate for a married man without children be 20s a Aveek in Duncdin and only 17s 6d a week in Invercargill? The cost of living in Invercargill is substantially higher than it is in Dunedin. According to the latest Abstract of Statistics, the index number of retail prices for groceries, dairy produce, and meat is 802 for Invercargill and only 730 for Dunedin. This comparison is not an isolated instance. On an average, the cost of living in the four centres is lower than in the rest of the Dominion. The Unemployment Board has already admitted that the higher sustenance rate in the four centres is undesirable in its effects and unjust. It is therefore difficult to escape the unpleasant conclusion that the smaller towns suffer because they cannot exercise as much political pressure as the larger centres.