Drift to Sustenance

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 6, 22 January 1937, Page 4

Drift to Sustenance

500 IN HASTINGS

New Rates Only Little Below Relief Pay APPARENT NEW POLICY Twelve months ago the Hastings Borough Council was employing on relief work about 300 men. To-day this number has fallen away to 90. At first this state of affairs looks most satisfactory, and migbt. be taken as an indication that unemployiment is being reduced, ^hat men are being absorbed into industry and tbat the depression is being steadily left behind. From a reliable authority, however, the ' ' Hierald-7 J :ibune " learns that these men are now o.n sustenanee, and that, in reality, the number of men drawing assistance I'rom . the Employment Promotion Fund has increased to a total of about 800 This flgure cannot be verifled, as the Labour Department policy is not to disclose the number of men drawing sustenanee payments in individual towns, but it is .believed to give a fairly accurate estimate of the position as far a« Hastings is concerned. "This is a vicious thing, ' ' was th® comment of the "Herald-Tribune's" informant, when diseussing the subject with a reporter this morning. "Th® policy now is apparently gradually to work all the relief workers on to su« tenance. They are really receiving a pension for doing nothing." The ispeakor emphasised the fact that the money which was being drawn on to keep these men in idleness was public money, and for this the publio was entitled to some return. "Tho Hastings Borough Council is to-day paying 90 men on relief work as against 300 a year ago," he continued. "A man on sustenanee receives only a few shillings a week les|s than the re-lief-worker who is putting in his three Says a week, and, by doing a halfday's work, he can bring his earnmge up to those of the/ man who. is doing three days' work." It was pointed out that Hastings was not the only town in which this istate of affairs existed. At Kioreoroa, North Auckland, about 100 men who had been employed on reclamation works by the Whangarei Harbonr Board had ceased work and gone on to sustenanee. By working, the men were earning only 3/- a week more than sustenanee, and they apparently considered it a better proposition to do nothing and take sustenanee, For this state of affairs the new rates of sustenanee pay as announced in December by the Government w®re held to be largely xesponsible. A singie man gets , only 1/- extra above the sustenanee allowauce if he is> on reiie? work, and in all the other cases the differenee is only 3/6. The following table shows the former and tho revised scale's for sustenanee:- —

As far as the Hastings Borougn Council is concerned there will be a saving by the number of relief workers being reduced. Up to the present the borough has maintained a speciai ofiice and officer to control and pay thei relief workers, and has also been faeed with the cost of pxoviding materials and implements for any work carried out. If the present trend continues, however, it is possible that this office will be closed down.

Old New Single men ............ 17/- 20/Married, with wife only 29/- 35/Married, with one child.. 33/- 39/* Married, two children . . 37/- 43/Married, three children . 41/- 47/Married, four children . . 45/- 51/Married, five children . . 49/- 55/Married, six children .. 53/- 59/* Married, seven or more children V. 57/- 63A-