Do you know when The government is changing the benefit system, the one about being more rigorous with under 25.More proof Labours âbeing kindâ actually hurt those it was wanting to help. Failed idiology - hand up not a handout. The worst part is Labour werenât transparent and hid the data:
Modelling obtained by the Herald reveals that expected time on Jobseeker and other main benefits has risen sharply in the past four years, Alex Spence reports.
Government estimates of the time beneficiaries will spend on income support have risen sharply, with recipients of the main Jobseeker payment now expected to spend an average of 13 years on a benefit, according to modelling obtained by the Herald.
The estimated time that work-ready Jobseeker recipients will spend on income support until they reach retirement age has jumped by 23 per cent since 2019, amid a âworryingâ slowdown of the benefits system that could strain government finances and trap thousands of people in poverty.
Long-term estimates for people on youth benefits and sole-parent support have increased even more starkly. Hundreds of disadvantaged teens are now expected to spend virtually their entire working lives on a main benefit, at a cost of nearly $1 million each in future payments, according to modelling by actuaries Taylor Fry for the Ministry of Social Development.
In total, Taylor Fry estimated that 626,000 New Zealanders who received a benefit in the last year will collectively spend another 6.43 million years on income support.
The Herald obtained the actuariesâ reports for the past five years, which have not been published until now, under the Official Information Act. They reveal that estimates of time on benefits were increasing before the Covid-19 pandemic â mainly because the rate at which people exit the system has slowed significantly â and are expected to worsen as unemployment rises.
Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston said: âThe trends in these reports are worrying. They confirm the fears I raised in opposition that the previous Government took the foot off the accelerator when it came to shifting people off welfare and into work.â
The reports also said:
- The estimates are skewed by a growing minority of beneficiaries, who appear to be staying on welfare for extremely long durations. For example, Sole Parent Support clients are projected to spend an average of 17 working-age years on a benefit (up from 12.5 years in 2019), but the upper quartile of this group â about 18,700 people â are expected to spend more than 25 years in the system.
- The changes are impacting young people most severely, with about 2000 teens on the Youth Payment or Young Parent Payment now expected to spend an average of 24 working-age years on a benefit â a 46 per cent increase from the 2019 estimate. About 500 of them are expected to be on income support for more than 38.5 years, almost the rest of their working lives.
- In 2022, Taylor Fry estimated the longest-staying youth benefit recipients would each receive at least $962,000 in future payments â implying a total cost of more than $480 million for that cohort. (There was no comparable figure provided in the 2023 report.)
- MÄori are also disproportionately impacted. In June 2022, Taylor Fry predicted MÄori would make up nearly half of work-ready Jobseeker clients by the end of this decade, up from 35 per cent in 2010.
- Public housing is becoming âincreasingly rigidâ, with people moving out at historically low rates at the same time demand for places is soaring. Entry rates to the public housing register roughly doubled in the past decade, while exit rates nearly halved because of a lack of affordable private rentals for tenants to move to. âThis has caused a system bottleneck,â Taylor Fry said.
Taylor Fry was first hired by MSD in 2011 when Sir John Keyâs National Government was in power. For several years, Taylor Fry reports were published annually on MSDâs website and occasionally cited by ministers as evidence in support of welfare reforms.
After Labour took over in late 2017, the modelling continued to be produced annually but the reports were no longer published on MSDâs website and largely disappeared from public discussion. Carmel Sepuloni, the Labour minister responsible for MSD between October 2017 and November 2023, said she did not recall being briefed on the research by officials while she was in government.
Beneficiaries now likely to spend 13 years on welfare
Govt estimates of the expected time on Jobseeker have jumped 23 per cent in four years.www.nzherald.co.nz