In February 2010 I had the opportunity to put a question about welfare reform to the Prime Minister, John Key. Here is his answer.






I was particularly interested in the last thing he said. That the US time limits were "in states" which gave people the advantage of simply being able to pack up and move to another state. That is exactly the objection I used to hear from the Left.

If this was the case, that people could move to another state where there wasn't a time limit*, or one could start their entitlement over in a new state, one would expect to see growth in many states. That wasn't the case. Not in the early days, when the rolls plummeted, and not from Jan 2004 - Jan 2008 when only four states showed slight growth - Maine 12%, Massachusetts 6%, Oregon 8% and South Dakota 2% - and that was probably due to the recession beginning.
























































To his credit he acknowledged that some people were having children to either get on or stay on a benefit but, reading between the lines, there is little appetite to change this because of the "what will happen to the child?" argument. As I have said before, that is exactly what some beneficiaries count on. Children are meal tickets and hostages to their own desired lifestyle; lifestyles that may be detrimental to their children.

* The time-limits were enshrined in legislation. States could however exempt up to 20 percent of their caseload or use their own funds to extend limits. Federal funds could not be used for that purpose.

The Prime Minister on why the DPB can't be capped and US-style time-limits