An anonymous reader quotes the Guardian’s report on last year’s update to Australia’s automated system for welfare benefits:
Welfare advocates say the consequences have been disastrous… In 12 months, welfare payments were stopped an extra 1 million times… [A] recipient’s money is cut off automatically until they satisfy their job agency consultant that they are committed to looking for work… Consultants have less discretion when a welfare recipient does not turn up to an appointment or misses another compulsory activity. They enter a code into a system that automatically triggers a payment suspension. The same goes when the welfare recipient fails to report their income or confirm they met their job search requirements via digital channels. Money is stopped first, and questions are asked later. The idea is that this will encourage people to follow the rules.
“In some cases it’s left single parents without money for food for their children over a weekend because they haven’t logged in and reported their attendance,” says Adrianne Walters, a senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre. “And so the computer says, ‘No payments’. And then that person is left without anywhere to turn until their employment service provider opens up again on the Monday….”
Since the new policies were introduced, about 50,000 suspension notifications now go out to welfare recipients across the country each week… analysis of government statistics by the Guardian shows about 75% of the time, benefits recipients who had their payments suspended under the new system were not at fault… Meanwhile, across a controversial welfare-to-work program for single parents with children under five, 85% had their payments suspended automatically but were later cleared of wrongdoing. The overwhelming majority were single mothers.
of this story at Slashdot.
Source:: Slashdot