Commission hindered by lack of data

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32873, 23 March 1972, Page 5

Commission hindered by lack of data

Difficulty in assessing adequate levels for benefit payments was found by the Royal Commission on Social Security because of “the absence of much necessary statistical and research data.”

The commission says it had to resort to value judgments rather more than it would have wished. The basis it used in determining benefit levels was to take two criteria which matched fairly well—the riilinpH-ate wage of an, engineer’s labourer for a 40hour week and the lower quartile level of adult male earnings in New Zealand—and assess the married benefit at 80 per cent of this rate and the single benefit at 60 per cent of the married benefit. (The lower quartile is the

line dividing the lowest quarter of a set of figures—in this case, earnings—from the upper three-quarters.) The commission says it was particularly impressed by the high quality of submissions submitted by the Social Security Department. "Its efforts to help us get to grips with complex problems deserve full praise,” says the report. “The high quality of its research and administrative staff was apparent in all the papers presented to us.” The commission also commends submissions from the Department of Health, but says it was disappointed that wider interest was not shown by university social scientists and in industrial and political organisations.