JobSeeker boost not enough for some, as controversy continues

Talk about tugging on the heartstrings.

Battlers are going to be starved and killed by a lack of financial support for the lowest-income Australians, according to some reactions to last week’s federal budget.

Despite the budget ignoring mortgage-stressed middle Australia while unveiling a $40-per-fortnight rise in JobSeeker payments, energy bill relief and cheaper medical costs for disadvantaged people, the harshest budget criticisms came from those representing welfare recipients.

Several Labor MPs were also unhappy that the rise in unemployment benefits was not enough.

The Australian Unemployed Workers Union said the Jobseeker decision would “starve” jobless people, claiming they needed at least $600 weekly – well above the new JobSeeker rate $366.45 a week – to stay above the poverty line.

Welfare payments got a budget boost. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Geraghty

“This isn’t ‘doing it tough’ – this is a level of poverty that kills people,” it said.

The Australian Council of Social Service was also critical of the new JobSeeker “poverty payment”.

“The government is providing an increase of $2.85 a day for people with the least,” it said. “The stage three tax cuts (in July 2024) will deliver $25 a day to people on the highest incomes. We have our priorities wrong.

“JobSeeker is still one of the lowest unemployment payments in the OECD, despite Australia being one of the wealthiest countries in the world.”

JobSeeker will have three rises this year – the usual inflation-linked increases in March and September plus the budget boost, and Treasurer Jim Chalmers continues to be attacked for not doing enough. He was also attacked for spending billions of dollars extra on welfare that fuels higher inflation and interest rates, so he can’t win.

This leads to the question: how much welfare is enough to give battlers a decent life without tempting too many to think they are happy living on government hand-outs.

According to the Services Australia figures an unemployed couple today with three children aged under 15 can potentially receive:

• Jobseeker payments of $631.20 each per fortnight.

• Family tax benefit Part A of $257.46 per child per fortnight.

• Family Tax Benefit Part B of $168.28 if the youngest child is aged under five.

• Commonwealth Rent Assistance of $148.

That more than $61,000 a year – close to $1200 a week – and does not include other benefits such as energy discounts, cheap medicines and transport concessions. It also doesn’t include the budget’s $40 per fortnight JobSeeker increase or the 15 per cent rise in Commonwealth Rent Assistance, both still to be legislated.

Sixty grand – soon to be more – is not exactly a comfortable wage for a household these days, but it’s not far from the median employee wage of $1250 a week or $65,000 a year. And that median is the middle point of all wage earners, so half the population gets paid less.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics data also show the median earnings rate in Australia is $37 per hour, well above the unemployment rate and a good incentive to find work.

It’s a fine line for any government to walk. Nobody wants to see people struggle, but arguably those struggling more right now are average wage earners with average mortgages whose finances have been blown apart by surging interest rates and other living costs.

Nobody seems happy with the budget, but perhaps that’s a good thing.

There will be even fewer people happy next year whatever the Albanese government does – retain the legislated stage three tax cuts or break a promise and scrap them.