The growing divergence between the numbers officially unemployed and those getting a benefit are highlighted in Mike Treen’s blog Billions of Dollars Stolen From The Unemployed . Worryingly the evidence around us suggests that a high price is being paid by those who have been excluded from or pushed out of the benefit system, but are not finding work.
When National embarked on a programme of ‘welfare reform’ in 2008 it justified it by raising alarm about the future cost of welfare. It decided to evaluate the success of these reforms, not by whether people’s lives were better, but by contracting a private actuarial firm at great expense to produce actuarial estimates of the future lifetime costs of the welfare system. Success is trumpeted by the Minister because these lifetime costs are apparently falling.
- See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/01/31/so-much-for-the-success-of-welfare-reform/#sthash.8FV29IKZ.dpuf
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