THE PRESS TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1988. ‘Work instead of sit’

Press, 13 September 1988, Page 12

THE PRESS TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1988. ‘Work instead of sit’

Can New Zealand afford to pay out $lOOO million this year to support people who are not working? The reply from many of those who are still working, and thus paying income tax, would be a resounding “No.” This is the figure which the dole is expected to cost in the 1988-89 year as the number of registered unemployed people climbs well above 100,000. Alternatively, it must be asked: can the country afford not to support unemployed people? The Prime Minister and many of his colleagues are painfully aware of the financial cost of the dole. They know also that many people believe — rightly or wrongly — that the dole is sometimes paid to those who have no intention of finding work. Mr Lange’s latest response has been to promise “new and specific initiatives” to combat unemployment. He has suggested that a scheme will be introduced similar to that being tried in the United States. People who receive the dole will be required to do work for it. Mr Lange described it as “work instead of sit.” Its impact, he said, would be much the same as “No work, no dole.”

The proposal has its appeal. There is surely no shortage of public works that might be done, even by the most unskilled labour. The work might range from the collection of litter up and down the country, to the construction of new highways. An older generation might recall that New Zealand gained important community assets, such as the Lewis Pass road, from the work of unemployed people during the last Great Depression more than 50 years ago.

But the cost of a scheme of “no work, no pay” can be high in many ways, however appealing the apparent simplicity of the idea may be to those whose taxes pay for the dole. Public works more than half a century ago were sometimes carried on in conditions that no trade union would accept today. “Slave labour” is too strong a term, but considerable compulsion was applied to some unemployed people to have them take up shovels and wheelbarrows, not always for particularly useful ends. Family disruption was considerable; and this had its cost as well.

Then, as now, the problem of supervision looms large. Someone has to decide what should be done, who should do it, and then make sure the work is indeed being carried out in a satisfactory manner. Trying to get work out of recalcitrant unemployed people could be a miserable business. The threat of withdrawal of the dole would not necessarily be sufficient to keep everyone at work. Alternative sources of income exist, as some people have found already. Other welfare benefits can be found by those determined to stay unemployed; crime can yield an income Kof a kind, and even now is not necessarily the ‘ last resort of those with time on their hands and a need for money.

;• Even those willing to work for their dole £ money, probably the great majority of people ; who are unemployed, would still pose i complicated administrative problems. Would everyone on the dole be required to work for the same time each week? Or would the time

of work be adjusted to take account of the present union rate for people employed fulltime in similar work? Would travelling time count as work time? Who sets the job priorities and pays the supervisors? Who provides tools and transport? The list goes on. Behind these questions lies a point that has sometimes been asserted vigorously by those who claim to speak for unemployed people. Work schemes for those who are otherwise unemployed can themselves cause unemployment. People on work schemes — whether full-time or part-time — sometimes displace others who already have jobs doing the same work. Little is gained if some work — perhaps performed very inefficiently — is extracted from those on the dole; and the result is simply to put more people out of work.

At best, any attempt to provide useful work to people receiving the dole is going to be uneven in its impact, and temporary in its benefits. There might be a sop to public opinion in knowing that at least some of those otherwise unemployed were having to do a little work for their unemployment benefit. Once the difficulties are listed, the challenge of providing work for unemployed people looks daunting. Yet is is a challenge that should be taken up. The truth may be that, given the climate created by the Government’s policies, the days of full employment may be gone for good: a substantial number of people may always be out of the kind of work provided by farming and industry and the normal range of services supplied by the private or State sectors. Any decent society has to resolve that some of the wealth created by those in employment will be made available to those for whom a place in the working team cannot be found.

The working team should be enlarged, if only for two good reasons: that the idleness and despondency and discrimination of unemployment are social divisive and ultimately damaging to the economy and society; and that those who pay for the dole see less return for their money than they can reasonably expect. The answer, regrettably but inescapably, lies in more money being spent on the unemployment problem, not less, simply because the machinery of providing work costs more than the machinery of paying the dole for doing nothing. This is where Mr Lange’s proposal leads. By free market standards and by the rules for the most efficient State expenditure, the product of work supplied by unemployment schemes has to be classed as a luxury — a compulsory luxury. It is a product not ordinarily deemed affordable, something on the bottom of today’s public shopping list, but not necessarily wasteful for the future. It does not have to be a product in which its producers cannot take pride; though they may have to accept rates of pay less than for jobs in higher demand. The jobs should be better, for everyone, than nothing; and better for the unemployed than doing nothing; Ideally, the product of unemployment schemes will be enjoyed by the country at large, which pays, and not just by a few.