New Unemployment Benefits The Government is to be commended for
its adoption of the recommendations of the Unemployment Insurance Statutory Committee regarding the disposal of the substantial surplus shown by the Unemployment Insurance Fund, amounting to a total of £17,600,000—L12,275,000 more than was expected. It is to be applied in two ways. The period of waiting, after unemployment begins and before benefit is paid, is to be reduced from six to three days : and benefit period is to be extended in the case of applicants who have been regularly employed—and therefore drawn little benefit— for five years. These concessions mean a material gain to the unemployed : one of their greatest advantages is that, as Sir William Beveridge calculates, 16,000 men a week will be kept off the Means Test, for though a Means Test is an inevitable necessity it often involves hardship in practice. The outlook is good; the average of unemployment for the next eight years is put at not more than 16f per cent., and even in slump conditions unemployment is not expected to reach 22 per cent., as it did during the last depression. * * * *
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