FAMILY ALLOWANCES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5076, 17 January 1927, Page 2

FAMILY ALLOWANCES.

OPERATIVE ON APRIL 1.

PROCEDURE TO BE FOLLOWED.

The legislation passed last sessionin regard to the endowment of families will become operative on April 1. Each head of a family whose income does not exceed £4 a week will then be entitled to claim 2s a week in respect to each child after the first two, provided, of course, that the children are not over 15 years of age.

"We shall follow the system now quite familiar with various classes of pensions applications, except that there will be no need, as. in the case of old-age and widows’ pensions, to have the claims examined by a magistrate,” said the Minister, in explaining the procedure to be followed. The C mmissioner of Pensions will decide all claims, but, for the convenience of applicants claims may be made to a deputy-registrar of pensions in any part of the Dominion, and every Courthouse in New Zealand will, in due course, receive a supply of application forms. The applications will be forwarded to the head office, and if matters are in order the applicant will receive a certificate, as in the case o’f other forms of pensions, setting out that the person named is entitled to a monthly payment of a specific sum.” Necessary regulations under the Act were now being prepared, added Mr Y’oung, who went on to explain that the benefits of the Act were available to every family whose average weekly income from all sources did not exceed £4. The small farmer and the man in business on his own account, no matter what the nature o'f that, business might be, would participate equally with the wage earner. The. payment to be made was 2s a week in respect of every child under 15 years where the family exceeded two in number. Thus a man with a family of four would receive 4s a week and a man with six children would receive Bs, with deductions. on a sliding scale where the income, exclusive of the allowance paid, exceeded £4 a week.