More favour cutting single mums’ allowance than university stipends
Matthew Vella MaltaToday’s survey has revealed a telling feature of Maltese society (and perhaps of human nature in general) when it comes to our attitude to welfare.
Although the annual €8 million in welfare payments to single parents pales into insignificance when compared with the €21 million paid in post-secondary and university students’ stipends, a whopping 36% would reduce the government’s expenditure on single parents, but only 7% would do away with stipends.
So cutting university stipends emerges as the least popular of the measures proposed by the survey. This explains the strong political consensus surrounding this issue.
But we certainly cannot discount the bilious demonisation of single mums in modern, industrialised nations. Portrayed as anonymous baby-mongers who sponge off our tax money, single mothers are easy targets. They are women first and foremost. And because the fathers of their children do not take responsibility for the child, they get unfairly depicted as being a notch below prostitutes.
That they have become the latest target of the Nationalist government, which seems to have taken a leaf out of right-wing loonies Azzjoni Nazzjonali, shows how economic crises always have their scapegoats.
The bare facts are that we have 3,650 single parent families with one or more dependent children – of these, a full 54% (a total of 5,450 persons) are at risk of poverty.
The maximum assistance is €363 a month (€4,357 yearly), increased by a further €32.60 a month for each additional child. If the mother pays rent, she gets an extra €4.64 a month.
If she is unemployed, she gets €12.48 added to her monthly social assistance and a bonus of €135 every six months.
If unmarried and living with her family, the single mum gets 75% of the maximum rate for beneficiaries. Single mums can do part-time work without losing their right to full assistance, as long as total income does not exceed the national minimum wage of €138.90 a week. In other words, a single parent may earn up to €48.12 per week and still receive the full entitlement of Social Assistance.
On the other hand: there are 10,000 university students (and 3,000 at the Junior College) eligible to an €83 monthly stipend (from October to June), plus a yearly €465 grant and a one-time gift of €465. The stipend for particular degrees (sciences, IT, education, engineering) is €146 a month.
To parents of these mostly live-at-home and unemployed children, it is a total €21 million of pocket-money that is not being taken out of their pockets. It is a state subsidy for parents. Better to have your kids take the money, than an anonymous woman who should be out working rather than making kids, no?
Because other than that reason, the university stipend simply does not work. The European Commission’s directorate on economic and financial affairs says Malta spends too much on university students, without even getting enough university graduates in return. Their studies say Malta gets “far less efficient outcomes” because stipends are granted indiscriminately and not related to merit or success. At 44% of present spending levels, the university would still have the same enrolment rates.
But it’s examples like these that test the social bonds of welfare: the Maltese prefer to see their kids get paid for books, cigarettes and booze (and hopefully a degree for a better job), than aiding single mothers at risk of poverty.
Our survey shows the self-employed being the category most in favour of cutting down on single parents’ assistance (46%) and the least in favour of cutting stipends (an anomalous zero per cent). For the most ideologically-devoid class, voting solely according to who taxes the lowest, the result is no surprise.
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