National
JobSeeker payments for more than one million unemployed Australians will be slashed by $300 a fortnight from tomorrow as coronavirus supplements are wound back – with reduced payments for the next few months to be worth an average $58 a day compared with $40 before the pandemic.
National
Many of the hundreds of thousands of Australians expected to lose their jobs before Christmas due to cuts to the JobKeeper subsidy could be forced to wait months for unemployment income support.
Get InDaily in your inbox. Daily. The best local news sent straight to your inbox every workday at lunchtime.
Thanks for signing up to the InDaily newsletter.
As COVID-19 restrictions slowly lift and borders begin to reopen, emergency payments and increased benefits introduced to mitigate economic and social damage are about to be wound back. Besides the economic impact, a return to pre-pandemic welfare income will plunge many back into poverty, argues Catherine Earl.
Official data shows South Australia now has the highest unemployment rate in the nation, with employment growth offset by a surge in people entering the jobs market.
For months, InDaily has been contacted by people across the country, sharing their stories of trying to navigate and live within the welfare system.
The Australian economy contracted by 7.0 per cent in the June quarter, confirming the nation is in its first recession since the early 1990s following the biggest quarterly GDP fall in 61 years – but SA bucked the national trend with a lower rate.
Australia’s housing system is a “ticking time bomb” with only one percent of single welfare recipients able to afford a rental property before payment cuts, according to a charity’s report.
