Politics Centrelink

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I suspect that, with the economic tide turning and automation coming, these are the lowest unemployment percentages we will ever see in Australia.

Such is the harsh reality of post-Keynesian economics. The concept of the NAIRU is that there needs to be some sacrificial lambs, who are out of work, to save the rest from inflation and further interest rate rises. When there are too many people in the lifeboat, it sinks and so some need to be struggling in the water and lighten the load.

Does it need to be like that? How can you say that unemployment is too low and also pay unemployed people a s**t ty benefit that doesn't allow them to look for work? Has the latest spell of low unemployment and rising inflation 'proven' that the NAIRU in Australia is somewhere above 4%? Some analysis has indicated that wages have little to do with the current inflation issue, that's it's imported inflation and profiteering. How accurate is that analysis?
 
With the way unemployment is calculated, if everyone lost their job and was trying to find work we would go from total unemployment to near 0% unemployment in a matter of months. It doesn't track the long term unemployed.

The stats used are just as political as the politicians who use them to pat themselves on the back for doing a good job.
 
There are a few types of unemployment, in my uneducated view from what I've witnessed:

Never employed - the most disadvantaged, with limited opportunities

Employed occasionally - long-term unemployed but have had a job for short periods, with long stretches of joblessness

Revolving door - on benefit, off benefit pretty much all the time

Regularly unemployed - spending most of the time in work but regularly having spend time on unemployment benefits every few months or years

Occasionally unemployed - has claimed benefits a few times in their working life

Never unemployed - has never had to claim benefits or never been eligible due to means testing, or is continually employed

Medical issues - spending stretches of varying length on unemployment benefits (as opposed to DSP) due to illness
 

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Gough said:
www.theguardian.com

Scrap ‘punitive’ mutual obligation system for Australia’s jobseekers, job agency tells inquiry

Another key industry player suggested government should shut down the work-for-the-dole scheme
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
Interesting Sarina Russo is one calling for the end of work for the dole, I doubt it would have happened if the government hadn't changed but perhaps she's sniffed some winds of change and wants to keep her snout in the trough.
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She can get her temps in there instead.
 
NSWCROW said:
................... who gives a *


You're carrying on like i marched in here yelling " YAY LAYBAH, * THE GRINZ " :rolleyes:
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When the government has to spend billions and billions on the Bear China Patrol subs they simply can't afford anything extra for the battlers in the country.
 
Kram said:
When the government has to spend billions and billions on the Bear China Patrol subs they simply can't afford anything extra for the battlers in the country.
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If you were cynical, you'd say that it will be more expensive to draft their centrelink roster to pad out the troop numbers if they push China over the edge, but the political class might see it as a win win.
 

Labor urged to spend $34b to boost ‘inadequate’ welfare payments​

Michael Read

Michael ReadReporter
Apr 18, 2023 – 6.17pm


Treasurer Jim Chalmers has been urged by a Labor-appointed committee to spend an unprecedented $34 billion dollars in the May budget to increase “inadequate” welfare payments such as JobSeeker and rent assistance.
The recommendations are contained in a report by the Albanese government’s new economic inclusion advisory committee, formed last December as part of a deal to gain independent senator David Pocock’s support to pass Labor’s industrial relations reforms.
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A Labor-backed committee has recommended a boost in the JobSeeker payment. Janie Barrett
The committee made 37 recommendations in the report, released by the government on Tuesday evening, including lifting unemployment benefits and Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA).
Implementing the recommendations in full would cost more than $34 billion over the forward estimates, $24 billion of which comes from a proposal to increase JobSeeker to 90 per cent of the rate of the age pension.
The Australian Financial Review understands Dr Chalmers is likely to adopt some of the report’s more modest recommendations, but he will not increase JobSeeker, as Labor grapples with a range of spending pressures and a $50 billion structural budget deficit.

Dr Chalmers and Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth said any spending measures would need to be weighed up against other priorities and fiscal challenges.
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Senator David Pocock. Alex Ellinghausen
Senator Pocock said the committee’s findings were clear, and that it was unacceptable the government did not do more to help welfare recipients.
“It appears that this Labor government can find extra money for just about anything - from inland rail cost blowouts to submarines - but it won’t do more to protect the most vulnerable,” he said
The committee, chaired by former Labor MP Jenny Macklin, told the Albanese government that all indicators showed JobSeeker was inadequate.
“People receiving these payments face the highest levels of financial stress in the Australian community.”

Payment gap​

Increasing JobSeeker to 90 per cent of the aged pension, compared to its current level of about 70 per cent, would address adequacy concerns, the committee said.
A single person on JobSeeker receives up to $347 a week, or $49.50 per day, while a single pensioner gets about $500 a week, according to Services Australia.
Because the age pension is benchmarked more generously than JobSeeker, the gap between the two payments stood at $160 a week at the end of 2021, compared to $35 in 2000.
The committee also said rent assistance, a payment of up to $79 a week for a single person, was inadequate, and that the payment did not keep up with the escalation in housing costs paid by low-income renters.
“While CRA provides some assistance, the vast majority of recipients pay rents above the maximum amount of CRA. This means that CRA is not adequately addressing the additional costs faced by renters on government payments,” the report said.

About 1.3 million Australians receive rent assistance in addition to other welfare payments. The committee said boosting rent assistance would support people on other “inadequate” programs such as the parenting payment.
The committee is also urging Labor to index rent assistance to the cost of renting, rather than the consumer price index.
Although the committee did not nominate a particular figure, the Grattan Institute has previously estimated a 40 per cent increase in rent assistance would cost the budget about $2 billion and provide welfare recipients with an extra $70 a fortnight.
Among the other recommendations are a commitment to full employment and to concentrate government investment in disadvantaged areas.
The committee also wants Labor to abolish the requirement that parents work a certain number of hours to receive the childcare subsidy, arguing that all children benefit from early education and care.
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Sounds fair and reasonable but will Labor actually ever bother to do it given there would be very few votes for them to win by spending the money here on a small minority of uncool battlers?
 
Kram said:
When the government has to spend billions and billions on the Bear China Patrol subs they simply can't afford anything extra for the battlers in the country.
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Quote the wrong post ?
 
Jobseeker row | The independent senator David Pocock has said voters will hold Labor to account for its failure to significantly increase jobseeker. “It appears that this Labor government can find extra money for just about anything – from inland rail cost blowouts to submarines – but it won’t do more to protect the most vulnerable,” he said. Labor’s Bill Shorten conceded he “couldn’t live” on the current jobseeker rate, but said the government had to be “responsible”.
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Given your honest days pay rubbish nobody believes you have jobseeker participants best interests at heart

This is the Liberal dilemma. Criticise Labor and back themselves into a corner or support Labors position and well that won't happen without some cognitive dissonance

I understand Labors position but eventually they need to bite some part of the bullet
 

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Labor was banging on in 2020 about how the rate was too low when they didn't have to raise it.
Cowards haven't done s**t almost a year in
 
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