COST OF PENSIONS

Hokitika Guardian, 22 July 1931, Page 8

COST OF PENSIONS

A slight-increase in the total amount of pensions paid by tlrt* Government is shown in the report of the Pensions Department for the year which ended on March 31. The cost per head of European population advanced from £1 19s 6d in 1929-30 to £2 0s 3d in the past year, this representing an increase in disbursements from £2,809,598 to £2,906,049. In certain classes,, Ahe number or pensioners ’and the total, of payments made have declined slightly, but in these cases the pensions represent allowances of an exceptional character.

The ranks of veterans of the Maori War in receipt of pensions, for instance have been reduced by death from 209 to 170, with a consequent decrease in the amount payable, and the cost of pensions allowed to relieve distress arising out of the influenza epidemic of 1918 has been relieved to the extent or £9BO, the amount paid last year being £6322.

Sundry pensions and allowances, and payments paid under the Civil Service Act 1908 also show a. decrease the } ’l ’ . total payments under these headings amounting in 1930-31 to under £20,000.

The pensions paid in respect of veterans of the Boer War totalled 59 last year, compared with 60 in the previous year, but a slight increase is shown in the amount paid, £2620. War pensions, generally speaking, might have been expected to show a decline from year to year, but this is not the ease,, the total payments in the past year to soldiers disabled in the Great War, their widows and other dependents having increased over the previous year’s total by £37,751 to £1,245,499. The number of pensioners shows an increase to 21,025. The added cost may be accounted for in part, no doubt, by the admission to the list of beneficiaries of person* who have established the attributnbility of ailments to the effects of the Great War. There can be no criticism of the widening of the schedule which allows of such extra payments being made.

Next to war pensions the great liability of the Pensions Department is in respect of pensions paid to the aged. Last year the number of those in receipt of old-age pensions was 28,995, and the cost ,of the pensions was £l,158,788. Old-age Pensions have risen rapidly both in number and in total cost. J'll 1921 there were, 19,837 pensioners drawing a total of £731,343. The total payments that have been made under this scheme now amount to some eighteen millions. v Pensions paid to widows- also appear to increase steadily in puinber. Six years ago £286,450 was paid to 3833 beneficiaries, and last year the total expenditure was £325,998 to 4566 widows. It is disturbing to find that pensions paid in respect to miners, as a result of incapacitation, due to miners’ phthisis, have also increased, the number of recipients in 1930-31 being 876 compared with 640 in 1926, and the total cost oil pensions £58,(141.

Equally distressing is the increase in the number of the blind who have been compelled to seek State aid, 330 persons last year being in receipt of relief amounting to £15,796. Family allowances, which have been issued since 1927 to supplement the earnings of fathers of families in excess of two children, where the total income does not exceed £4 per week, were paid last year to 4617 families, as compared with 3868 in the previous year, the total cost being £63,608. The number of families benefiting by this allowance appears to be small, in view of the volume of unemployment that was recorded during the past year, and this raises the presumption that the provisions of the Family Allowances Act are not as widely known as they could be.

The report suggests very clearly that the claims made upon the Pensions Department are likely to increase in the coming years. The number and the expenditure involved in certain special pensions, such as those paid in respecct of war disabilities, will doubtless decline as the years pass, but increases may be anticipated in the number of those who seek lelief under the ordinary provisions of pension legislation. All the pensions represent an obligation which the Dominion must continue to honour, as a charge that must be regarded as a permanent concession to the humanitarian instincts which inspire any truly civilised nation.