"ULTIMATE GOAL"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22400, 22 April 1936, Page 14

"ULTIMATE GOAL"

MINISTER EXPLAINS abolishing relief system EXPANSION OF INDUSTRIES [BY TELEGRAPH —SPECIAL REPORTER] WELLINGTON, Tuesday The objectives of the Government with regard to tho relief of unemployment were again set out to-day, when the Minister of Employment, Hon. H. T. Armstrong, made a statement in the House of Representatives announcing higher relief work aiul sustenance rates. "It is not possible to reach our ultimate goal in one step," the Minister •said. "Indeed, several important steps have already been taken since the Government took oflice, and there must and will be several more after the step which I am about to outline. Payment of sustenance to able-bodied men 011 any scale whatever is not our objective. We shall not consider our work completed as long as tho necessity exists for any sustenance payments from the employment fund, nor until every able-bodied worker is rendering that service to the community to which he is best adapted. "That, of course, means expansion of our productive industries, which takes time. While we organise for that objective we are taking advantage of the more-ready-to-hand steps which will make tbe transitory period' less difficult for our displaced workers. Public works will almost immediately take up some of the slack and I confidently anticipate helpful co-operation from local bodies. Directed on improved lines, employment, when offered, be it on public works or intermittently organised through local bodies, will carry a reasonable wage and the Government will expect to get a reasonable return of work. Relief rates of pay and rclipf style of work must simultaneously disappear."

PRIVATE EARNINGS EXTENSION OF LIMIT MARRIED MEN BENEFIT [BY TELEGRAPH —SPECIAL REPORTER] WELLINGTON. Tuesday An extension of the limit of private earnings which a relief worker may receive before his relief allocation is adversely affected was announced in the House of Representatives today by the Minister of Employment, Hon. H. T. Armstrong, in the course of a Ministerial statement on increases in the relief and sustenance rates. In future married men will be allowed to have an income from all sources, including relief, on a scale rising according to the size of their families from £3 to £3 18s a week. . A comparison of old and new limits for private earnings was given by the Minister as follows:—Single men, present rate, £2 a week, new rate, £2. Married men, present rate, £2 10s, new rate, £3; married and one child. £2 14s, £3; married and two children, £2 18s, £3; married and three children, £3 2s. £3 2s; married and four children, £3 6s, £3 6s; married and five children, £3 10s, £3 10s; married and six children, £3 14s, £3 14s; married and seven or more children, £3 16s, £3 :ißs. „ . The following classes of income, the Minister said, would be entirely ignored in calculating the total income of a relief recipient:—The earnings of any child under 16 years of age; the first 17s 6d a week of combined income from war disability pension or any allowance granted under the War Veterans Allowances Act; family allowances under the Family Allowances Act.