STILL A MEANS TEST

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 96, 23 April 1940, Page 8

STILL A MEANS TEST

No objection can be taken to the statement made yesterday by the Acting Minister of Social Security 1 (Mr. Parry) that beneficiaries under the Social Security Act must inform the authorities when they are' able to earn above the amount allowed them under the legislation. That is the law, and the Minister must uphold it just as beneficiaries must obey it. The refunding -of benefits received, even if wrongly received, will always be "vexatious and a .hardship" while human nature is as it Is, but avoidance of a statutory obligation cannot be excused. At the same time, the Minister's statement does draw attention to an undesirable feature of the Social Security legislation. As the Act stands, there is a perpetuation of the means test for pensioners to which members of the Government, when in Opposition, made vigorous objection. Applicants for pensions, they claimed, should iy>t -be placed in the humiliating position of having to submit to a searching examination of their private affairs in order to 'qualify for a benefit to which their services to the country entitled them. But the Government, in placing the Social Security legislation on the Statute Book, retained the means test, which, if undesirable before, is doubly undesirable under the farreaching scheme-ior which the legislation provides. It is undesirable for two main reasons. One is that it discourages thrift, always a commendable virtue. If people know that because they voluntarily make some provision against the future tney will be deprived of some of the benefits of a scheme to the. cost of which they must make a compulsory (and; in many cases, substantial) contribution, they will naturally be less inclined to, practise thrift, The other main reason is that a means test discourages persons from accepting employment which will bring them more than the statutory £1 per week and so reduce their Social Security benefits. There are many who, despite the fact that they are able to qualify for the benefits, are still capable of rendering useful service to the community, especially at a time when there is a call for special effort on the part of everybody. Will those people think it worth while to offer that service if by so doing they deprive themselves of some part of the benefits to which the law entitles them? Clearly it would have been better to have introduced a scheme which would have taken account of thrift and industry, - rather than penalising those who are provident and willing to work.