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this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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I'm a big fan of both raising the payment floor and the cutoff ceiling.
People claiming benefits shouldn't be going hungry if they can't find work AND we want to not discourage people who are currently claiming benefits from getting work.
Whether that be through simply raising the ceiling at which point the benefits are reduced, or perhaps having some sort of "earnings bank" where earning too much in a single fortnight doesn't effect your payments until it happens several fortnights in a row, or some other clever mechanism.
There already is this feature in place for CLink recipients. It's called "Working Credits". But, you can only earn 48 "credits" (being dollars) per fortnight, up to a maximum bank of 1000 on JobSeeker. Source
Their example of how it works:
My partner went through this recently. She got a casual job (which is great), and used up all of her working credit for the fortnight. I think the amount you can "bank" is a bit too small IMO. Along with the amount you can earn before you're cut off completely. With Cost of Living going through the roof, she's finding that she has to cut back on food and other essentials because rent is getting ridiculous, shopping for food is getting ridiculous and yeah. Plus the risk of it being casual work, there's no guarantee of shifts.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯I remember having to do the maths once upon a time, and decide that I didn't want a shift in my part time job, even though I could use the money, because it would effect my payments.
I had to reach an agreement with my employer where they promised to offer me at least X hours a fortnight (I can't remember what it was, and there was no guarantee, just a verbal promise), because there was a point at which I was not only losing the centrelink payment, but I'd lose the rent assistance, and health care card and all the other things, necessitating my reapplying for everything.
To someone on that knife edge of paying rent and eating, with electricity for heating... That was a bit too dangerous to play with.
Yeah it's an absolutely shitty predicament to be placed in.
My partner was lucky in the sense that she's been given basically guaranteed shifts... but she's off crook with the flu, which she caught from one of her clients. Which means she's going to be up shit creek this fortnight money wise.