SOCIAL SECURITY ACT

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 April 1939, Page 10

SOCIAL SECURITY ACT

PROBLEM OF LARGE FAMILY. Keen disappointment with the provisions of the Social Security Act was expressed to an Auckland “Star” representative by a. father of nine young children. Himself unlit for heavy work and unable to find employment that he can undertake, he has been on sustenance allowance, on which the family received the equivalent of £4/15/- ft week, and now comes under the Social Security Act. which makes the family allowance £4 2/4 per week. His family allowance has been in-

ci eased from £3/8/- a month to £6 1/4 a month, he said, but. whereas he formerly got £3/11/- a week sustenance, he is now paid an allowance of £2/12/- a week for himself and his wife, and the milk ration of 28 pints of milk per week formerly allowed him under the sustenance system had been cut off. This milk ration, at the present price, was worth 7/- a week. For a -family of 11, including nine children under 16 years of age, a. reduction of 12/8 a week in the living allowance was serious, he added. He paid £J a week rent, and the biggest item of the family food bill was the purchase of six pints of milk daily, which he found they could not get on without. Ji was necessary to buy four loaves of bread daily and a. pound of butter. Potatoes, bought wholesale at the mart, was the staple diet. For-

tunaieiy tne enndren, given wholesome food, had never bad u day’s illness. Such luxuries as cakes were out of the question for them. Such fresh green food as lettuces, he added, they were seldom able to enjoy, as their home had a tarred ami sanded backyard which did not permit. of any gardening being done to supplement the food supply. The family consisted of a baby nine months old. girls of two, four, eleven and fourteen years, and boys aged live, seven, eight and nine, “By law cur income must not exceed £4 per week,” stated the critic of the Act. “If I earned 10/- it is deducted from my sustenance, and so on up to £4. If I could earn up to £5 my wife would still get the family allowance. but the great problem for me is to find work that can be done by a man classed unlit for heavy work for which £5 a week would be paid.

“The rate at which 1 receive a payment, of £2/12/- a 'week under the Act is lixed for a married man with five or more children. Apparently it does not matter to the State that 1 have nine children. The point 1 am making is that, the scale should not stop at five children, because for a man with nearly double that number of children it is next to impossible to maintain the family on that rate.”