I’m flat broke – Centrelink has kept me on hold for nearly 10 weeks

We shouldn’t give unemployed people more money. The answer is to get them into jobs. That’s the message politicians routinely trot out when it’s suggested we should give the unemployed a leg up. But there aren’t enough jobs and they know it.

Most economists believe a certain level of unemployment is necessary, partly because it helps control inflation. In other words, the unemployed need to take one for the team.

More Australians are taking one for the team, but the government denies them support in their hour of need.Credit: iStock

Shortly before she became Reserve Bank governor, Michele Bullock made a speech in which she explained that “if unemployment remains too low for too long” it becomes harder to manage inflation. To put it another way, the RBA aims to achieve a Goldilocks unemployment rate that’s not too high and not too low – it’s just right.

In this pursuit, the RBA is simply doing what governments ask of central banks the world over. But if unemployment is necessary for Australia’s economy, why does our government treat unemployed people so badly?

As I write this, I’ve been waiting 68 days for Centrelink to process my JobSeeker application. I’m flat broke and have relied on loans from family and friends to survive. It’s embarrassing, depressing and makes me angry given I’ve been a taxpayer for most of my life.

In the last six months of 2023 around half of the 22.4 million calls to Centrelink went unanswered while around 1.1 million “customers” waited for their claims to be processed. Centrelink says it’s sorry for the delay and suggests raiding your superannuation if you’re in a jam. This messaging was obviously approved by someone who has never tried to get cash out of their super fund in a hurry.

Friends try to reassure me that I’ll be back-paid once my application is approved, but I can’t rely on this because my claim may be rejected.

Seventy-six thousand more Australians were unemployed this January compared to the same time last year. This follows redundancies at the likes of KPMG, Australia Post, Star Entertainment, Telstra, and the big banks. Job cuts have also bitten in the tech, mining, and retail sectors. Last week PwC made 329 staff redundant. We will see the wider impact of such cuts when the latest unemployment figures are released on Thursday.

Yet with more Australians taking one for the team, the government denies them support in their hour of need as bureaucrats wrestle with the backlog.

Luckily for me, I recently landed a new gig. I’m confident I’ll eventually dig myself out of this financial hole, but my heart bleeds for others who remain trapped in this cruel system.

Credit: Illustration: Dionne Gain

Despite a recent increase, JobSeeker remains punishingly low. A single person with no children receives a maximum of $381.35 a week – less than half the minimum wage of $882.74.

Single carers can get $493.85 a week – just over half the minimum wage and less than one-fifth of what a dual-income family on the median wage would earn.

But if we pay them more, apparently they won’t get off the couch and get a job.

There’s little evidence the government’s punitive system encourages unemployed people to get a job. Germans have more than twice the financial incentive to stay on the couch, yet Germany’s unemployment rate has remained significantly lower than ours for more than a decade. We can pay unemployed Australians a lot more without having to worry about turning them into dole bludgers.

When JobSeeker was temporarily doubled during COVID-19, the unemployed briefly experienced the luxury of living slightly above the poverty line. Yet even at this level payments fell well short of the minimum wage and remained less than half the median income. There was still plenty of incentive to get a job.

I see no reason why we shouldn’t return to the payment levels we saw during COVID-19, which would mean a single person with no children would be paid around $650 a week today.

But here’s the rub: one of the main reasons the Coalition government doubled JobSeeker in 2020 was because giving money to poor people is one of the best ways to stimulate a sputtering economy. But when the need for stimulus waned, the government yanked unemployed people back below the poverty line.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers is preparing his next budget, which means it’s the perfect time for the Labor government to alleviate this cruelty. And he would be doing so with the support of the Business Council of Australia, which has been a long-time supporter of increasing unemployment benefits.

But we’re repeatedly told we can’t afford it because the budget surplus is at risk.

Of course we can – it’s all about budget priorities. And besides, there are huge hidden costs to making the unemployed suffer.

Inadequate unemployment benefits thrust people into financial stress and can lead to homelessness, food insecurity, debt, and mental health problems. These factors make it harder to look for work, maintain skills or acquire new ones. It can become a vicious cycle leading to intergenerational hardship.

People in this situation are unproductive and more likely to turn to crime. Put simply, they’re an economic burden. Giving the unemployed a leg up could realistically have a net economic benefit.

Yet sometimes I can’t help but feel we’ve got this all backwards when we judge it in terms of the economy. Fixing these woefully inadequate payments because it’ll reap an economic reward is wrongheaded because it prioritises the health of the economy while treating the welfare of humans – the beings the economy is supposed to support – as a mere byproduct. And how we treat our most vulnerable will always be the best measure of our own humanity.

Gary Newman is a Melbourne-based filmmaker, journalist and communications specialist.

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