Public Address | Cafe | Speaker: 1600 beneficiaries moving into work each week? When a lot is not a lot

Marc C

Fri, 19 Sep 2014 15:57:57 +1200

Stephen, here is a news item from the Radio NZ website covering that topic. It is a tiny number of all beneficiaries who had to undergo a drug-test for prospective work or training, and who consequently "failed" it, and had sanctions placed on them:

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/255036/benefit-drug-testing-numbers-released

"Twenty people have had their…

Marc C

Fri, 19 Sep 2014 12:14:50 +1200

Yep, propaganda galore we get, there is NO doubt about it.

I recommend this audio recording from Kathryn Ryan's Nine to Noon program today (Friday, 19 Sept. 2014), which has Brent Edwards, political editor for Radio NZ National, reveal the truth about many statistics that have been thrown around this…

stephen clover

Fri, 19 Sep 2014 08:00:33 +1200

This morning's RNZ news bulletin at 7.30 finished with a short, cute, and quite bizarre piece about how many drug tests had been failed by beneficiaries taken as a pre-req to going into a job or training course. No context. No quote from minister or department. No stats regarding the…

Marc C

Fri, 19 Sep 2014 01:56:28 +1200

And now we have even Bill English (Deputy PM) go around making bizarre claims that long term benefit dependence is like "crack cocaine addiction".

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/bay-of-plenty-times/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503343&objectid=11326924

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/election-2014/news/video.cfm?c_id=1503581&gal_cid=1503581&gallery_id=145532

Quote: "Getting stuck on a benefit (long-term) is like crack cocaine, it's really hard once you've started to come off it ..."

Also reported:…

Ian Dalziel

Mon, 15 Sep 2014 17:55:10 +1200

Beneficiaries Haul…
With the computing power now on offer and the statistics within the various departments available , surely there can be a balanced accounting of how many people are :
– employed (tax records)
– unemployed (WINZ)
– subtract those over 65 and under 16 (census)
compare against known…

Marc C

Mon, 15 Sep 2014 15:37:17 +1200

We are still waiting for evaluation results and figures, that go beyond of such data that the Nats and Bennett have considered valuable for their election campaigning, see Michael's earlier post:

http://publicaddress.net/speaker/how-is-government-evaluating-its-welfare/

Marc C

Mon, 15 Sep 2014 15:26:13 +1200

Quote: "The ‘1,600 per week’ figure has two worrying implications. First, it is evidence that the welfare reforms have done little or nothing to improve Work and Income’s performance at helping people into work. So far we have had scant evidence of the impact of the reforms."

It is true…

Steve Curtis

Mon, 15 Sep 2014 13:28:26 +1200

Yes, 1600 a week is not a lot.

SkyTv has 865,000 subscribers, their churn rate ( from annual report) is 13.2%, which would be 2195 per week.

stephen clover

Mon, 15 Sep 2014 12:54:07 +1200

And, apparently, "work" includes 1 hour per week "jobs".

Michael Fletcher

Mon, 15 Sep 2014 12:27:38 +1200

Yes, oga, the number is a flow figure. Nothing wrong with that in itself – it's just that it doesn't appear the welfare reforms have improved the rate at which beneficiaries are moving into work.

Russell Brown

Mon, 15 Sep 2014 10:52:51 +1200

The backlog of processing work is at one of the highest levels as well. The proposed amalgamation of Senior Services and Studylink will only add to the workflow problems, so in short, the Statistics are flawed, and the problems are going to get worse. The Job Placement service has actually…

Joe Wylie

Mon, 15 Sep 2014 09:56:00 +1200

How many people on benefits turn 65 each week? Once you're on national super you're no longer counted.

Kumara Republic

Mon, 15 Sep 2014 09:50:17 +1200

How many of them have gone into ‘real’ jobs? And are there any stats on how many of those who move off the benefit have gone to Australia and beyond?

Jim Brown

Mon, 15 Sep 2014 09:43:55 +1200

The amount of people coming into W and I Service Centres has actually increased.
The backlog of processing work is at one of the highest levels as well. The proposed amalgamation of Senior Services and Studylink will only add to the workflow problems, so in short, the Statistics are flawed,…

Russell Brown

Mon, 15 Sep 2014 09:39:05 +1200

Yep. Turns out, it's a churn number.

oga

Mon, 15 Sep 2014 09:30:26 +1200

Whenever I hear about people moving off the benefit, I wonder whether the number of people moving _onto_ the benefit during the same period was considered.

Public Address

Mon, 15 Sep 2014 09:30:26 +1200

Discussion from blog post.