Thursday, April 22, 2010

March 2010 benefit statistics - a mixed bag

March 2010 benefit fact sheets are out.

Unemployment benefit 60,211
DPB 109,643
Sickness benefit 55,796
Invalid's benefit 84,877


Over the year to March unemployment benefit is up 62 percent ; DPB up 7 percent; sickness benefit up 9 percent; invalid benefit up 1 percent.



Over the quarter to March while the DPB also rose (+354) the unemployment (-6117), sickness (-3362) and invalid (-161) benefits fell.



Earlier in the month the Minister said;

1,110 sole parents also cancelled their DPB and went into paid work.

But more joined up to the DPB than left.


The quarterly fall in sickness beneficiaries is good but I am not sure what it means. Perhaps the December quarter had featured a temporary surge in short term recipients explaining why 2009 saw the biggest calendar year SB increase ever recorded.

The quarterly fall in the unemployment benefit is also obviously good but I still believe much of it represents a transfer to student allowances. There are still no 2010 statistics available for those.

3 comments:

gingercrush said...

Those DPB numbers sure are high. How many kids does that equate to under such welfare?

Lindsay Mitchell said...

180-190,000 children. Hence NZ's much talked about child poverty problem. Around 90,000 are Maori.

Anonymous said...

Even Dave "Tony Lite" Cameron has more guts than this useless National/ACT government.

Here's an idea John - Lets cut the dole for those who refuse to work! - yep, really simple, if there are jobs - and there are lots of jobs out there -we terminate the dole, immediately and permanently

Noo, never work, never in NZ, or in any "Westminster" country...

Really.

Really???


Because it is tory policy in the UK

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/files/2010/04/cameronbenefits.jpg


Even Roger doesn't have the guts to say this.

Even Brash's 2025 joke report didn't say this.

but it is a mainstream policy in the UK.