No incentive for jobseekers to get off disability pension

NEW social security rates reveal that the "payment gap" between disability pensions and the dole has risen dramatically to $127.20 a week.

NEW social security rates reveal that the "payment gap" between disability pensions and the dole has risen dramatically to $127.20 a week, as welfare groups vow to ramp up the issue -- with Greens support -- ahead of the May budget.

They argue there is no incentive for people to get off the more lucrative pensions and into work.

More than 3.3 million Australian pensioners will get a boost of between $5 and $7 in their payments from March 20 but 554,000 on the jobseekers' Newstart Allowance will have their payments increased by just $2.60 a week, to $237.45. The gap has increased by $8 a fortnight in just six months, while the pension rates balloon.

President of the National Welfare Rights Network Maree O'Halloran said for every dollar that the pension increases and payments for unemployed people remain virtually stagnant, there is an additional incentive for people on Newstart Allowance to test their eligibility for the Disability Support Pension.

"It is an extremely difficult process to get on to a disability pension nowadays and the rules will be tightened yet again from January next year, but if you're living on just $33 a day, there are 127 rational reasons why an unemployed person would pursue eligibility for a pension," she said.

"Unless and until the government rectifies this payment gap that is pushing people to claim the disability pension, the problem will continue to grow".

Welfare Rights said unfair indexation arrangements and ad hoc increases to pension rates had seen the gap between pensions and allowance payments grow from just $6.45 in 1986 to $127.20 a week after March 20 this year.

Greens senator Rachel Siewert said: "We are very concerned about the substantial difference between the pension rate and the allowance rate. The Greens want to see this difference reduced and we continue to raise this issue wherever possible."

Welfare Rights has called on the government to increase the Newstart Allowance and Youth Allowance by $50 a week as a first step to fixing the payment gap.