Australian income support since 2000: Those left behind.

[bear]

Australian income support since 2000: Those left behind.

This report is the second in the ACOSS and UNSW Sydney Poverty and Inequality Partnership’s COVID-19 Build Back Fairer Series. The Report analyses the changes to key income support payments from 2000 to 2021. It provides a comparison of the changes to income support highlighting who has been left behind. Its purpose is to inform debate about how our income support system can be improved to deliver a fairer post-pandemic Australia.

The purpose of the Build Back Fairer Series is to help us understand the different aspects of change, and who is most badly affected by the pandemic. The series draws together data on the impacts of the COVID recession on income support, employment, inequality, wealth and regions.

The first report in the Build Back Fairer Series, Analysis of income support in the COVID lockdowns in 2020-21 analysed the changes to income support arrangements for people in different locations across Australia during the COVID pandemic, covering the period September 2019 to September 2021. The first report, with its interactive maps, found that the areas more economically disadvantaged pre-pandemic have also typically been the areas hit hardest by the economic effects of pandemic up to the present time. This second report shows the people who have been impacted most by changes to income support payments over the past 20 years, both negatively and positively.

We trust this report will assist decision-makers to design policy responses to build back fairer in a manner that includes people hit hardest by the effects of the COVID pandemic, including those on the lowest incomes.

The Poverty and Inequality Partnership between ACOSS and UNSW Sydney includes researchers from multiple disciplines in order to fully explore the ways in which inequality and poverty are related to other measures of disadvantage, such as health, housing and homelessness and justice.

We are grateful to those ACOSS members and philanthropists who continue to support this vital research and impact partnership, including Anglicare Australia; Australian Red Cross; four Australian Communities Foundation funds (the Impact Fund, Hart Line Fund, Raettvisa Fund and the David Morawetz Social Justice Fund); the BB and A Miller Foundation; the Brotherhood of St Laurence; cohealth, a Victorian community health service; Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand; Mission Australia; the St Vincent de Paul Society; the Salvation Army; and The Smith Family.

povertyandinequality.acoss.org.au/income-support-since-2000/

[bear]

We are grateful to those ACOSS members and philanthropists who continue to support this vital research and impact partnership, including Anglicare Australia; Australian Red Cross; four Australian Communities Foundation funds (the Impact Fund, Hart Line Fund, Raettvisa Fund and the David Morawetz Social Justice Fund); the BB and A Miller Foundation; the Brotherhood of St Laurence; cohealth, a Victorian community health service; Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand; Mission Australia; the St Vincent de Paul Society; the Salvation Army; and The Smith Family.

Why wouldn't they be grateful!! What I see are multiple private organisations, many doing great work in their own way to help the poor, unemployed and vulnerable. What I also see is many of these same organizations receiving federal funding to do and continue this work.

Essentially, they have created an industry to employ and support themselves, that has continued over multiple decades; surely at the ultimate expense of those poor unfortunates they seek and claim to serve. 

A very simplified and only slightly facetious overview, granted; but in the end from my perspective and personal experience, many times it was more cost effective to suffer a little longer and purchase new than pay for the old overpriced clothes and electrical items available from their thrift shops. As for the many and varied other services they provide, more public housing to house their clients/customers surely must be a cheaper option than the pseudo public housing being provided and subsidized by government to the benefit of the mainly aledgedly NFP organization. Creative accounting is one helluva tool!!

Instead of being in cahoots with government, a restructured mission statement to end poverty and unemployment for all those who choose whether to work or not should be much more fulfilling than the mainly self serving structures currently in place.

Morning rant over, thanks for listening; cheers bear