After the High Court ruled the present Guaranteed Income criteria are unlawful because they do not treat university students equally, the Knesset Finance Committee has begun holding meetings to redraft the criteria to ensure that avreichim remain eligible. The court said new arrangements should be formulated for the 2011 budget year.
Committee Chairman MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni said we must contend with the High Court ruling and will do so, calling on government ministries to immediately prepare plans and solutions.
"This is a humanitarian issue that has been recognized by various generations of Israel governments over the decades," said Rabbi Gafni. "It's about bread and milk for these families, which are among the weakest in Israeli society. If we take this away we take away their children's bread and milk."
Rabbi Gafni surveyed the entire issue of Guaranteed Income, noting that the arrangement has been in place since before 1980.
"Until then there was no separate arrangement for avreichim," he explained. "Instead anyone in a difficult financial situation would receive food coupons and assistance. In 1980 it was decided that these coupons were undignified and instead money would be deposited into the accounts of those who were eligible to receive assistance. As a result of the new arrangement, which was based on working income, avreichim were deprived of the assistance, and therefore it was decided to make another arrangement that would include them."
Rabbi Gafni added, "While those eligible to receive Guaranteed Income based on the National Insurance Law receive about 40 percent of the national average income, the avreichim who are eligible and who meet the criteria — which are very stringent — receive only 18 percent of the average wages."
