Cost of Security

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19732, 10 September 1938, Page 20

Cost of Security

Sir—On the plea of removing misunderstanding regarding contributions to the social security scheme, Mr. Harris rather ingeniously creates an entirely wrong impression. He says that if a man with a family is earning £5 per week he will pay 5s instead of 3s 4d. That is correct, but i. is only half the story. Take the case of a man and his wife and three children aged 16, 171, and 19 years. The wife and each oi the children will pay the levy of 5s a year. The boy aged 16 is earning £1 a week and will pay £2 12s a yeai waxe-tax; the one aged 17$ earns £2 10s and pays £6 8s; while the daughter who is employed in the home at 10s per week wiii pay Is 6d a week or £3 18s a year. Adding in the £l4 a year paid by the husband, the total wage-tax for this family comes to £37 18s a year or 14s 7d a week, compared with the 3s 4d a week being paid at present. It the husband happens to be a farmer and the two sons are employed by him, the payment is increased to £42 2s a year or 16s 9d a week for the wage-tax and levy alone, or five times as much as the family now pays.

Still the full story has not been told, because Mr. Harris has not explained where the rest of the cost of the scheme is to come from, and it is certain that this ufill add a further heavy indirect burden on the family man. Perhaps we can derive some consolation from the knowledge that the president of the local Labour Party has so realised the unpopularity of this scheme that he has been forced to attempt to defend it, but it is regretted that he did not give the full facts.—Yours, etc., FAMILY MAN.