Nobody needs to tell Abby Manning how hard it is to survive on unemployment payments.
For most of 2021, she relied on Youth Allowance while she studied at TAFE for a career in disability support.
She said the roughly $33 per day she was getting at the time "definitely was not enough to live on".
"I couldn't afford the basics [and] I definitely couldn't afford my rent," she said.
Ms Manning said she routinely had to ask her friends for loans to cover her share house costs.
"I, at the time, genuinely was starving. I was asking my friends to pay my rent," she said.
"It's not a fun situation to be in ... having to owe all of your friends thousands of dollars."
Unable to stay afloat on Youth Allowance, Ms Manning said she was forced to drop out of TAFE. She managed to get a job working as an organiser for the Greens in the lead-up to last year's federal election.
Now 20, she's been out of work since last November, living off her savings in a share house with five others.
She's aghast the Albanese government appears set to modestly boost the JobSeeker payment for those over 55s, while younger unemployed people miss out altogether.
Leaks suggest approximately 227,000 JobSeeker recipients aged over 55 will receive an extra $3.70 a day in next week's budget.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers refused to confirm or deny the reports on Tuesday but he did say unemployed women over 55 were the most vulnerable cohort of unemployed Australians.
While older JobSeeker recipients look likely to receive a modest increase in support, roughly 684,000 single people under 55 on JobSeeker and Youth Allowance would see their payments — at $49.51 and $40.20-per day — remain well below the Henderson poverty line.
The Henderson line — one of the most commonly-used measurements of disadvantage — suggests income below $87.32 per day places a person in poverty.
Ms Manning said she felt like young people had been forgotten by the government of the day yet again.
"I definitely feel like ... my generation isn't being cared for [and] the government simply doesn't want to prioritise its spending on young people."
'You can't live on it'
Once, unemployment payments were skewed towards young people.
But the number of older Australians and women on JobSeeker — and its predecessor Newstart — has climbed significantly over the past few decades.
Women over 55 made up the largest proportion of JobSeeker recipients last year at 16 per cent, according to an analysis of Department of Social Services data by the Parliamentary Budget Office.
That represents a big social shift: in 2001, women over 55 only made up two per cent of recipients. Then, men in their 20s were the largest cohort.
Those aged 60 or over who've spent more than nine months on JobSeeker already qualify for a higher rate of $745 a fortnight — that's $3.71 a day more than their younger counterparts.
"The JobSeeker payment already makes a distinction for people closer to the aged payment," Mr Chalmers said on Tuesday.
"That's in recognition that it is harder to find a new job at the end of your working life.
"The group that is most likely to be long-term unemployed are people over 55, [and] that group is dominated by women."
While a lift to JobSeeker would be welcomed by 63-year-old Carolie O'Connor, she said it wouldn't solve all her financial problems.
"Whatever extra money there is, it won't be going in my pocket — it'll be going towards the energy or water bill," she said.
Ms O'Connor has an employment history going back decades, including work for several government departments, and has been on and off unemployment payments for a decade.
She has little superannuation and took a number of years out of the workforce to raise her kids as a single mum.
The Western Sydney resident has been borrowing money from family members to help plug the gaps and recently took out a $500 loan to help pay a water bill.
Ms O'Connor works around eight hours a week as an aged care support worker, earning around $240 in income which then reduces her JobSeeker support.
To fulfil her mutual obligations she is required to look for extra work and said it was difficult competing with younger people for the same position.
"It's just debilitating ... because you know that you're not going to get the job," she said.
"Politicians ... have no clue what it's like to survive [on JobSeeker]."
Ms O'Connor said everyone on unemployment payments needed a boost.
"You can't live on it. You can't do it," she said.
"It doesn't matter how old [you] are. The young are doing it tough too."
Social services advocates have said if the rate of unemployment payments are too low for those over 55, they're too low for everyone.
"Restricting an increase in JobSeeker to people of a certain age is really an attempt to divide us and to encourage people to think that there are 'deserving' and 'undeserving' welfare recipients," Antipoverty Centre spokesperson Kristin O'Connell said.
"This is really making people who may receive a small increase feel awful about the fact that may come, while others are getting no additional help at all.
"It's really unfair."
