My Two Bits' Worth

Somewhere in my distant past life with Family Budgeting and general social services I entertained the concept of delivery of supplementary financial support via something like a present-day debit card. 

Anyone could apply for such a card and it would have the capacity to divert the cost of a specific percentage of any sale of certain items to the public purse. Each individual’s percentages would be related to their normal income and their tax rate as recorded by the IRD.

It could apply equally well to everyone from low-wage earners to full-time beneficiaries. The retailer would receive the full amount of payment and would not know how much of any sale was met by the state.  

A system of this kind could be much more flexible around the edges of bands of entitlement than supplementary assistance. It could also smooth the very difficult transition from benefit dependence into work. Indeed, if a political choice were made, it could easily limit the large amount of financial support given to some of us who do not have so great a need of it in our older age.

In the 1970s it was a pretty impossible strategy. The country couldn’t agree to personalised cards at all, even just for personal identification, and certainly not for delivering credit rather than cash. But the concept is not so unrealistic in these high-tech days.  The Community Services Card could probably provide a vehicle for the distribution of realistic financial assistance via credit rather than cash. 

I'll send that to the dreamers in Treasury ...