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24 Shevat 5766 - February 22, 2006 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
Cuts in Child Allotments Affected Working Families Most

by G. Kleiman

"The cut in Child Allowances left more children below the poverty line. The poverty rate among children focuses on working families. The cut in Children's Allotments did not push recipients out into the job market [who were not there before]," said Former Bank of Israel Deputy Governor Prof. Tzvi Zussman during a child welfare conference in Be'er Sheva.

Zussman refuted former Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's claim that cutting Child Allowances would compel many people to enter the job market. Zussman maintains that children in wage-earning families are harmed in two ways: First, from the cut in Children's Allowances since families with a wage- earner typically have more children than families in which the head of the household does not work. And second, from the cut in Guaranteed Income (Havtachat Hachnasa), which hits harder at low wage earners than at families without a wage earner. Thus 92 percent of wage-earning families were affected by the cut in Guaranteed Income compared to 62 percent of families with household heads who did not work. Zussman insists the cuts should be stopped immediately and calls for a resumption of the policy of more generous allotments.

Current National Insurance Institute Director Dr. Yigal Ben Shalom, who also participated at the conference, supported Zussman's remarks and demanded that the next government stop the cut in Children's Allowances and legislate a child's rights law that would guarantee proper care for high-risk children.

"The State and its institutions have failed the test of protecting high-risk children," said Health Minister MK Yaakov Edery.

 

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