Last month, the report of the interim economic inclusion committee was released, which found that the low level of JobSeeker is acting as a barrier to entering the workforce as the unemployed don’t have enough to meet the “essentials of life”.
The committee, chaired by former families minister Jenny Macklin, concluded that on “all indicators” jobseeker and the youth allowance are “seriously inadequate, whether measured relative to the national minimum wage, in comparison with pensions, or against a range of income poverty measures”.
“People on these payments face the highest levels of financial stress in Australia”, the report said.
The committee proposed raising JobSeeker to 90% of the aged pension at a cost of $24 billion over four years to the federal budget.
In Tuesday’s Federal Budget, the Albanese Government announced that the base rate for working-age and student payments would be lifted by $40 per fortnight, as of September 2023.
This raises the daily payment of JobSeeker to $52.40 and for Youth Allowance to $43, still 41% and 51% below the poverty line respectively.
For context, people working full time on the minimum wage live on $116 per day.
Even after this increase, Australia’s unemployment benefits will remain among the very lowest in the developed world.
The rate is so low that even Business Council of Australia (BCA) CEO Jennifer Westacott has called for the base rate of JobSeeker to be progressively increased to 90%.
“We’ve got to do that in a staged way timed with proper reforms to the way the job services system works”, she said.
When even voracious rent-seekers like the BCA support a proper lift in JobSeeker, you know the payment is woefully inadequate.
