this post was submitted on 23 May 2024
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Raising jobseeker is not 'fiscally sustainable’? Sorry, but that is flat out wrong | Greg Jericho (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 5 months ago by vividspecter@lemm.ee to c/australia@aussie.zone
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[–] MHLoppy@fedia.io 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

The graph comparing unemployment assistance across countries was really surprising to me. It makes me want more information about what's behind that. Do we have a smaller gap between median and average income than most of our peers (maybe from less ludicrous-income jobs in e.g., tech)? Is there a significant difference in attitude towards transfers here vs elsewhere? Is it a difference in economic beliefs (surely our economic situation wouldn't be that different though right?)?

Like what justification / reason is there for being last there?

I've known for ages that the payments are low as compared to median wage, but had honestly never even considered the possibility that we might be dead last out of OECD countries on that metric, and also way under the average.

[–] vividspecter@lemm.ee 10 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

It's arguably easier to get and to keep than in some other OECD countries (certainly the US) and partly it's due to higher wages too. But beyond that, Australia is a country that has been infested with anti-welfare propaganda by the Murdoch family and other conservative papers, for many, many decades.

And Liberal governments since the 1990s have actively gone out of the way to prevent increases and to make welfare harder to get. It was only the Senate that prevented some truly draconian anti-welfare measures being put in place by the Abbott government in 2014, for example. Labor too haven't been particularly helpful (and at times harmful) and even if there is some sympathy from those within the party, they appear to be scared of conservative backlash.