SUSTENANCE PAYMENTS.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20267, 9 August 1937, Page 8

SUSTENANCE PAYMENTS.

Suggestions have been made recently that the special tax levied to provide funds for the unemployed should be adjusted, in order to lighten the burden thrown on rhen with largo families. The authorities have made no comment, but it is evident that during the coming session some pointed questions will be asked about this particular tax. The number of men employed is, fortunately, much ,

below that of August, 1936, and with the commencement of seasonal occupations the aggregate should bo rapidly reduced during the next two or three months. The benefit is twofold. Those who obtain work cease to be a charge on the funds, and automatically they bocome subscribers to it, so that the financial position to-day should be much better than that of twelve months ago. In the four-weekly period ended July 3 the number of men drawing sustenance without work increased by 1155 when compared with the preceding period, a movement not unexpected in the winter time.

Mr J. A. Lee, Under-Secretary in Charge of Housing, made a statement on Thursday with regard to the policy of the Government, and especially with reference to the sub-letting of houses by tenants of dwellings built by the State. In the course of it Mr Lee said: “ A man may be on sustenance, but the income of the family as a whole may bo £7 per week.” That surely calls for a detailed explanation? If in a family earning £7 a man who happens to be unemployed can draw sustenance then obviously ho is benefiting by funds provided, in very many instances, b3 r men with families who between them do not obtain anything like that amount. The married man with a young family could hardly be expected to view favourably the maintenance of a special tax if part of the proceeds is used to provide sustenance payments to a man whose family enjoys an income of £7 each week. Women workers whose wage is reduced regularly by deductions for wage tax also will view that state of affairs with strong disapproval. The Minister should issue some explanation. Perhaps the figure he mentioned is the maximum under the schedules, but actually it may not be paid. Wage-earners have found this impost a heavy one, and confidently expected that it would be reduced as the volume of unemployment diminished. That has not happened, so that they may question a policy that would enable a man to draw sustenance from the fund whilo his family hull an income of £7 weekly.