Dole numbers explode

Wednesday, 3 June 2020

The number of Australians receiving the JobSeeker payment rose by 300,000 in a month to hit 1.64 million people on May 22, with a further 45,000 claims outstanding, the Senate inquiry into the government’s response to COVID-19 has heard.

The Department of Social Services has previously estimated that 1.7 million people would seek the welfare payment by September.

The full text of this article is available to MacroBusiness subscribers

$1 for your first month, then:

$24.99 / month

$249 / year

Cancel at any time through our billing provider, Stripe

About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.