WINZ cards won’t help

It was such a kind compromise, wasn’t it? Instead of cutting people off their money entirely, the government will now put it on a little card for you and hold your hand while you spend it down at the supermarket, because obviously you’re a beneficiary and if you knew how to spend money well, you wouldn’t be here. Poor people need rich people to tell them how to be poor better — they’re the people who‘d know, after all!

National’s new plans for sanctions, and the presentation of the payment card as a workable solution, is yet another demonstration of how laughably out of touch Luxon and Co. are with people not on their salary level.

If you are sanctioned as a beneficiary, 50% of your income will go on a payment card for groceries so you can spend that money on the things you are supposed to.

I’m sorry, but what beneficiary out there can afford to spend half their income on food? Over half my income goes to rent! Immediately. And that’s not uncommon: 44% of beneficiaries receiving the accomodation supplement paid more than 50% of their incomes in rent, and in Auckland it’s even worse, with 51% of AS beneficiaries paying 60% or more of their income in accomodation costs.

This is not even considering boarding situations, where there is no grocery money to spend with your payment card; that’s included in your accomodation costs.

Luxon doesn’t understand this. He literally has never had to comprehend living on so little, nor has he looked at the realities of a beneficiary’s budget. If he had, he might notice that his payment card plan still threatens to make beneficiaries homeless. And default on their debts. And not be able to pay power or water, let alone anything else.

But that’s okay with Luxon, I suppose, so long as they’re not buying cigarettes. The filthy buggers.