The Rich Gets Richer

I don't know what to think of the rich who earn millions of $$ a year ... yet pockets welfare! Below is an excerpt from www.smh.com.au

I also want to thank all you who have given suggestions on the door locks :) - much appreciated.

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Source: Sydney Morning Herald <-- link to full story
Wealthy parents grab $65 handout
By David Humphries
August 12, 2005

MILLIONAIRE WELFARE

- Family Tax Benefit part B introduced in 2000 for sole parents and stay-home mums

- No means test for a maximum benefit of $65 a week.

- In 2003-04, 31 recipient families each earned more than $1 million.

.Last year, million-dollar families numbered 76; the benefit was paid to 38,500 families earning more than $100,000

The Government has promised to review its non-means-tested family payment after figures revealed that more top-income Australians, including millionaires, were lining up for the maximum benefit of $65 a week.

Last year, 76 single-income families who earned at least $1 million a year received Family Tax Benefit part B, introduced in 2000 by the Howard Government to assist sole parents and stay-at-home mums. A year earlier, only 31 recipients earned at least $1 million.

The benefit, paid to the stay-home parent regardless of the working spouse's income, also went to 352 families who earned more than $500,000 last year.

The welfare lobby said the annual distribution of up to $130 million among 38,500 families earning more than $100,000 a year "could be much better spent on low-income families".

The director of the Institute for Private Enterprise, Des Moore, a former senior Treasury official, sees it as part of politics-inspired "welfare creep".

"Contrary to the idea that social security is supposed to be for people in greatest need," Dr Moore said, "it has been expanded under this Government to the point where social security as a percentage of GDP has grown by 3 percentage points since Whitlam."

The distribution of Family Tax Benefit B payments was revealed by the Family and Community Services Department in answers this week to Opposition questions.

Labor's welfare spokesman, Chris Evans, said yesterday that battling families faced "savage cuts to their incomes under the Howard Government's so-called welfare-to-work policies" while millionaires' row was "sucking even harder on the welfare teat".