SUSTENANCE PAYMENTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 59, 11 March 1937, Page 8

SUSTENANCE PAYMENTS

Referring to the check being made on the declaration by relief workers of the money earned, "Humanity" writes that a man on sustenance with three children getting £2 7s a week (previous payment under No. 5 scheme £2 10s 6d) is entitled to earn1 only 15s per week extra. This, he considers, is penalising the children, as relief workers cannot feed or clothe theirs cheaper than the man in steady work. Everybody has had a rise but the relief worker, he maintains, to whom the cost of living has risen as it has to everybody else. Sustenance men should be allowed to earn up to the minimum wage fixed by the Court, £3 IBs. He maintains that maintenance works should not be done by relief workers, but by permanent hands, and this in his opinion applies particularly to private institutions and colleges. Why should the relief worker pay out of his wages for the necessary transport to these jobs?

..The employment division of the Labour Department, to whom the above letter was referred, makes the following reply:—With reference to. the allegation made by your correspondent that the Government has not granted ■improved conditions to the relief worker and that all classes have had a rise with the exception of those on relief, it is pointed out that no fewer than three increases in the relief rates of pay have been granted ' since the present Government assumed office, j The first review took place as from March 2, 1036, when all districts were placed on an equal footing with the four main centres in which the relief rates had previously been higher. Then, as from June* 1, 1936, Scheme 5 ana sustenance rates were further increased in all districts. On November 30, 1936, the sustenance rates were again increased by 3s per-week for single men and 6s per week for married men. The increases granted have resulted in the rates for men in country districts now being higher by from 9s to 25s per week' than they were prior to March, 1936. In 'the secondary towns the increases range from 7s. to 22s 6d per week and in the main centres from 4s to 19s 6d per week.

In addition to the above increases the benefits available to relief workers have been made, more liberal in other directions such as increased Christmas payments, extension of period of sick payments, increase in scale of allowable private earnings, etc.