Last update - 00:00 18/04/2007
Olmert unveils 3-year plan to bring poverty rate down to 17.2%
By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday unveiled a three-year plan to combat poverty, which the first time states numerical targets for the reduction of the number of people living below the poverty line. Olmert intends to reduce the poverty rate to 17.2 percent.
The plan aims to lift 60,000 Israeli families over the poverty line within three years, affecting some 242,000 people, among them 115,000 children.
The plan will also include employment and unemployment targets for the first time, and the plan's success will be measured based on these targets.
Previous governments had been willing to commit to annual inflation and growth targets, but were not ready to commit in a concrete manner to reducing poverty and unemployment.
Olmert will hold a press conference on Wednesday with Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Eli Yishai and Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog. 'We must present a solution to poverty,' said Herzog Wednesday during a Histadrut labor federation conference. 'We in the government are constructing a series of tools to deal with the issue.'
The tools are designed primarily to assist workers whose income places them below the poverty line, as well as the elderly and disabled. Included in the plan is a negative income tax an income addition of several hundred shekels per month based on income and number of children. This addition is designed to reduce the number of poor families and children without increasing the size of child allowances, which have been significantly cut in recent years.
The proposal also includes increased enforcement of labor laws, which too is designed to increase wages for low-income earners, as well as reforms regarding the employment of migrant workers, in an attempt to reduce unemployment, especially among workers with minimal education. The plan is expected to cost several billion shekels over the course of three or four years, although the investment in the initial years is expected to be relatively low.