The die has been cast. Few families across the nation shall have been left unaffected by yesterday’s budget. It is difficult to find much to laud, aside from the fact that the very necessary deed has been done. Yet we can be cheered by the fact one admirable welfare reform has occurred in the midst of this economic depression, giving hope that at least this aspect of our spending may become more prudent once we emerge from this slump. From the budget speech of Minister Lenihan:
- for new applicants, the rate of Job-seekers Allowance and Supplementary Welfare Allowance for persons aged 20 and 21 years of age who have no dependent children is being reduced to €100 per week and for those aged between 22 and 24 to €150 per week; and - for all other cases, the rate will be reduced to €150 per week where job offers or activation measures have been refused.The budgetary excesses of the Celtic Tiger era allowed us to over indulge in the nation’s passion for crafting a safety net. The well intentioned pursuit of ensuring society’s most vulnerable did not slip through the cracks. We allowed years of bumper tax revenues, buoyed by an overheated property market, to delude ourselves into believing we could construct a welfare state which offered a plethora of benefits at some of the most generous levels across the continent and somehow support all of this from a rather moderate tax base. Of course once the construction market floundered, this appalling vista opened before us – a gaping hole in the national revenue for which no alternative income could be found.
It is time for a pragmatic touch and analytical eye to be cast upon our welfare system. The above mentioned reforms to unemployment benefit are precisely of the sort which must continue to be contemplated and proposed. It was a frankly ridiculous situation in which young men and women of 20-24 years, some graduating from college or university, some qualifying in a craft or trade, others simply drifting through their youth with little drive or ambition, could claim full unemployment benefit. Was the State truly saying that these young citizens, apparently at the most flexible, versatile and hopefully, motivated, period of their lives, the responsibilities of mortgages and young families still a relatively distant prospect, needed such a level of welfare support? How do you stimulate some form of determination in a youth whose outlays at this period in their life are at their lowest, into gainful employment if the prospect of full State support is so readily accessible from the very outset of what should be their working lives?
Ross Douthat, columnist for the New York Times, made a very valid observation on his blog recently when responding to one academic’s criticism of a system of unemployment benefit that compels a claimant to accept any form of employment that becomes available:
What an extraordinarily pernicious notion — that it’s somehow degrading, or a form of second-class citizenship, to be expected to look for a new job while you’re accepting money from the public purse.The Job Seekers Allowance offers a helping hand to those in moments of economic difficulty in their lives, who despite their best efforts cannot secure paying employment. It is not intended as a means of perpetual support for those who are well capable to hold jobs but who have no intention to do so and are quite content to lead their lives entirely at the taxpayer’s expense. Such a situation should never be tolerable and the barest minimum of payment should be offered, as Minister Lenihan has done in this budget, otherwise a culture of entitlement is allowed to seep into the mindset of entire generations and the vicious circle that the welfare trap can be, shall simply keep on spinning.
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