Self-employed turn to food aid

Self-employed people are starting to turn up at foodbanks as the recession hits families who have never asked for help before.

Social service agencies say some families are missing out on available help because they refuse to go to Work and Income until they have run out of food.

A Waikato family that contacted the Herald this week, after both parents had been unemployed for most of the time since December, was refused family assistance by the Inland Revenue Department because they earned too much in the first eight months of the tax year.

They are now six weeks in arrears with their rent. The extended family have rallied together to offer support.

But Salvation Army Auckland community services manager Gerry Walker said the family might have been helped if they had gone to Work and Income as soon as they lost their jobs.

He said many people, like the Waikato family, had sporadic incomes from self-employment or contract work and used their savings to tide them over between contracts.

"People don't want to go on welfare. We've seen it for years now and it's admirable," he said. "But they actually do themselves a disservice when they could have been entitled for a period of time and taken that pressure off."





Auckland City Mission community services leader Richard Larkin said more self-employed people were also seeking food parcels at mission offices in central Auckland and Otahuhu.

"Work has dried up or they have had to pay their tax bills," he said.

The mother in the Waikato case rang Inland Revenue six weeks ago and was told she could not get family assistance for her two school-aged daughters because of the family's combined income since this tax year started last April.

"We haven't applied for unemployment benefit," she said. "We have been trying to stay away from that. What do you do when there is nothing or nobody to turn to?"

Waikato Regional Commissioner for Social Development Te Rehia Papesch said that, based on the information supplied, the family would be entitled to unemployment benefit from the day they contacted Work and Income.

She said the agency would also help the family to find work.

"We have 200 Waikato jobs on our books and another 700 vacancies in the Auckland area," she said. "Helping people into work is our main priority. People don't need to be on a benefit to access our employment services."

IF WORK RUNS OUT
* Unemployment benefit is worth $306.92 a week net for a couple with children.
* Means-tested accommodation supplement available of $98 a week in rent or $118 a week on the mortgage for couple with children.
* Family assistance of up to $86.29 a week for a first child under 16, and up to $59.98 for each subsequent child under 13 (or higher rates for older children) if household income is under $70,000 a year.
* ReStart policy allows tax credits of up to $60 a week, and get an extra $100 a week in accommodation supplement for 16 weeks after redundancy, if you had been working full time for the previous six months.
* Work and Income provides up to $1500 for expenses to find work.

www.workandincome.govt.nz/individuals/in-financial-hardship.html