[Israel] Finance Ministry: War on poverty results soon

From Globes Online

The government is preparing a NIS 14 billion seven-year anti-poverty plan.

Zeev Klein 24 Jan 06 09:37

Acting Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Ehud Olmert promises to deal with poverty and social distress.

An inter-ministerial team headed by Ministry of Finance director general Dr. Joseph Bachar has formulated a comprehensive plan for dealing with social welfare gaps, including various methods for reducing poverty. The NIS 14 billion seven-year plan focuses mainly on long-term tools and means, including job creation, providing services to poor people, investment in education, and increasing the proportion of people in the civilian labor force.

The government has already made allocations for social welfare items in the 2005-2006 budget, including subsidies for daycare centers, extending the basket of health services, and a nutrition program.

The Ministry of Finance said that economic policy in recent years had begun to show results. The economy is growing at 5.2% a year, 170,000 Israelis have joined the labor force, wages are up, and the unemployment rate has begun to fall significantly.

The Ministry of Finance added that the National Insurance Institute’s interim report on poverty was based on the late 2004 and early 2005, while most growth would be felt in the second half of the year, which was not reflected in the report.

”The trend is positive, but it will become evident only later, when growth trickles down to all sections of the population, and the positive indices and government programs play a greater role in the reduction of poverty,” the ministry’s announcement read.

”Dependence on soup kitchens and charitable institutions is disastrous. The state must not disavow its responsibility,” President Moshe Katsav said.

Katsav added that poverty had continued growing and deepening in recent years, despite economic improvement. “The writing has been on the wall in recent years,” he said.

Katsav also said that the dire figures showing the expansion of poverty made it necessary for the Knesset and the government to make the war on poverty a high priority.