Relief of the Uninsured The report of the Unemployment Assistance
Board on the first twelve months of its administration shows once again the necessity for the new regulations which the Government has delayed so long in promulgating. The Unemployment Assistance (Temporary Provisions) Act of February last year, under which the Board has had to operate, was hastily substituted for the regulations originally drawn up, as a result of the indignation they had aroused; it provided that recipients of unemploy- ment assistance should receive relief at the rate fixed by local authorities or the rate fixed by the Board, whichever was the higher. The result has been to increase rather than decrease the anomalies of the former system of transitional benefit, which the Board and the regulations were meant to prevent. The Report shows that large differences in rates of assistance exist, not merely between widely separated districts but between neighbouring areas in the same district ; a man moving house may lose 12s. a week in assistance benefit. It is further estimated that about a half of the families whose members receive assistance possess resources which amount in all to £24,000,000 a year. The new regulations may be expected to remove the anomalies now existing by a process of levelling down. In this case a repetition of last year's outcry may be looked for.
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