ON THE DOLE
[To the Editor of Tun SPECrvron.] SIR,—Your contributor, Mr. Walter Greenwood, in his article " On the Dole," gives an instance of a typical family in Glasgow consisting of an unemployed man and wife with one son aged 24 earning 40s. and one daughter aged 17 earning 25s.
Under transitional payments, as at present administered in Glasgow, the first working member of the household is allowed 20s. plus one-half the excess of his gross wage, the remainder being deducted from the unemployed parents' allowance. The second, or any subsequent, earning member is allowed only one-half of his gross wage, subject however to a minimum of 15s., the remainder being deducted from the applicant's allowance. In the case of the family described by Mr. Greenwood, Glasgow would now deduct 10s. in respect of the son's earnings and another 10s. in respect of the daughter's. The father, therefore, would receive a weekly payment of Os., not 18s. 6d. as Mr. Greenwood states.
Under the Board's new regulations, the earnings rule (which is always applied to net wages, which are usually about 2s. below the gross wage) would deduct 1 1 s. in respect of the son's earnings and 5s. 6d. in respect of the daughter's. Subtracting these from the parents' scale of 24s. the allowance will thus be 7s. 6d. This coincides with Mr. Greenwood's figure, since, although he has taken off 2s. too much under the earnings rule, he has put the parents' scale at 26s. instead of 24s. In any case, the result is that the family in question will receive under the new regulations Is. 6d. more than they are receiving at the present time tinder transitional payments ; the household income being 72s. 6d. instead of 71s.
If the daughter were aged 18 instead of 17, the Board would only deduct 3s. in respect of her earnings, so that the applicant's allowance would be 10s., which is 4s. better than the present Glasgow payment. The household income would then be 75s.
These allowances under the Board's scale are subject to a further increase under the rent rule if the family in question is paying a high rent, while a reduction under the rent rule is unlikely unless they are paying a rent of substantially
less than 7s.—Yours faithfully, J. S. WEDDERBURN. House of Commons.
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