A brief post to set the record straight.
RNZ is running an article entitled, Do you know what people on benefits actually get?
If you don’t, you won’t find out from the article, which is mostly a testimony to the evils of inequality and supporting quotes from the Helen Clark Foundation and economist Shamubeel Eaqub.
There is just one sentence that contains anything resembling an answer to the headline question:
He [Shamubeel Eaqub] said the fact that the JobSeeker basic benefit is $361 a week for single people over 25 without children, compared to $538 a week for people on NZ Super might surprise some people.
He chose the lowest benefit.
The Ministry of Social Development now reports annually on what people on benefits receive. They call their report, Total Incomes Annual Report which reflects that the ‘basic benefit’ is just one part of the total income.
I am not going to pass comment on the adequacy, or otherwise, of the incomes. But I am going to provide what they are.
If you are unable to read the following graph, go to the report, page 9.
There was nothing to prevent RNZ reporter Susan Edmunds from reproducing the same chart in order to best answer the question she posed. Or Shamubeel Eaqub drawing from it.
Yet again RNZ shows its total lack of balance.
This article was originally published on the author’s blog.
