AMAZING DOLE ABUSES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21165, 23 April 1932, Page 13

AMAZING DOLE ABUSES.

GLARING CASES REVEALED.

THE BRITISH "MEANS" TEST. SAVING A MILLION A YEAR. [FROM OUB. OWN COIUIESPONDENT.] LONDON, March 15. The Public Assistance Committee of the London County Council gives some glaring instances of the abuse of the dole and emphasises the necessity of a means test. The committee estimates that the needs test has already saved the Exchequer £1,000,000 a year. The means test was imposed by regulations framed under the Anomalies Act passed by the. lato Labour Government. It provides that every recipient of unemployed benefit must, on the expiry of his or her standard benefit, comply with the moans test before receiving payments for & further period. The cost of this supplementary benefit is met from the Unemployment Fund, but the Act appointed the Public Assistance Committee v of the country as the authorities to impose the test and make decisions as to sums to be allowed.

The committee state that there was no reluctance to apply for transitional payments, but as soon as it was known that each applicant would be required to give full particulars of his circumstances and those of his household many did not persist. Large numbers of married women withdrew at this stage. Many were found to have husbands in full work, while others declined to give any information. Some Glaring Cases.

A single man, aged 20, applied for transitional unemployment benefit at the rate of 15s 3d a week. Inquiry showed that of his family of father, mother, three sisters and two brothers, the father earned £BOO a year; two sisters were earning wages (amounts not revealed), and the two brothers were both "on the dole." A married man claimed 15s 3d a week. His wife owned a shop Slaking a profit of £lO a week, and a son gave 10s a week for his board. Their rent was 19s 7d.

Other examples were :—Single man, aged 61, appropriate rate of unemployment benefit 15s 3d a week, was possessed of means to extent of over £1167.

Married man, aged 62, wife 68. Appropriate rate of benefit 23s 3d a week. Post Office Savings Bank £630. National Savings Certificates, £163. Total, £793. Also one single daughter residing with applicant and earning £3 a week and one boarder paying 30s a week. Single man, aged 52. Appropriate rate of benefit 15s 3d a week. Service pension 18s 5d a week declared. Had £lOl4 in Post Office Savings Bank and fiftythree National Savings Certificates. Single man, aged 31, claiming 15s 3d, living with parents, one brother and three sisters. Total income £lO 2s lid a week. Rent 19s 3d.

Single woman, aged 30, claiming 13s 6d, living with father, brother and two sisters. Father not working. Total income, £l4 7s 6d a week.

A further case was that of a married woman. She claimed benefit for herself as a single woman. Her husband was getting benefit for both of them at another exchange, and he was working under another name. The application of the means tests in Northampton has resulted in the discovery that a man who possesses £2OOO worth of war stock, 500 war savings certificates, and a house, has been drawing 25s a week for two years for himself and his wife. Legal Under Old System. While 50 per cent, of the cases considered up to February 20 were found to be entitled to full transitional payments, approximately 34 per cent, of the new applicants were found not to be in need of assistance, and 16 per cent, were found to be in need of payments of less 'than the maximum.

"It is impossible nofc to draw the conclusion," states the Public Assistance Committee, "that in & large number of cases, before the operation of the 'needs' test, State money had been drawn as transitional benefit where it was not really needed. This involves no criticism of the people who drew these payments, since under the old system they were legally entitled to do so."

The first Labour Government in 1924 made it its business to increase benefits—from 15s to 18s for men, and from; 12s to 15s for women. The succeeding Government reduced the men's benefit by a shilling, but raised the dependants' benefit by two shillings. Labour, returning to power in 1929, raised the dependants' benefit by a further two shillings. Nor is it only rates of benefit that are concerned. The last Labour Government abolished the "genuinely seeking work" clause and the imposition of the means test was made a political issue at the general election last October.