IMPROVED SUSTENANCE PAYMENTS

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 24, 28 July 1934, Page 12

IMPROVED SUSTENANCE

PAYMENTS

The improved sustenance payments announced by the Minister of Employment will have general public approval, and • should afford a measure of relief to the more Sorely distressed. As the simplest way of meeting - the\ need the board has chosen to raise the scale, so that all the unemployed who come in the categories mentioned will benefit. It would, we think, have been more satisfactory if the money had been allocated according to the needs of individual cases.. Not.all the unemployed are on the same basis, even when they are in the same classes. For example, B, with friends who assure him a helpful succession of odd jobs, could carry on at the old rate, while C, with no such help, was suffering. Of course, allocation on personal "need would necessitate close inquiry; but we think it should be considered when the results of the thirteen-week trial of the new scale come to be examined, i There is one other point to which attention should be directed. In ! announcing the new scale the Minister made it clear that the board would rather pay for work than distribute sustenance, but it was being gradually driven to sustenance without work through failure of local efforts to provide work of an economic character under suitable supervision. This criticism does not apply everywhere. Some local

bodies have work plans, for months ahead; others, admittedly, cannot offer much which would not be ruled out as maintenance or otherwise unsuitable. But it would be a great mistake to assume that the "obstacles to continuance of the No. 5 scheme are insuperable or that abandonment .of the scheme is warranted. Where the local bodies have done (heir share with a will the scheme has been a success. The assets created in Wellington are a sufficient answer to a lot of the loose criticism'that is heard; but 'local co-operation is essential and it would be deplorable if the board were compelled to go a step further towards the^ole because local bodies, after criticising the board, have no time to, be helpful.