I’ve been trying to live on the jobseeker payment for a year and a half. It’s not possible. The payment is not enough to live on. And the budget won’t change that.
I spend hours each week debating what foods I can afford to buy for my household. Opting for nicer bread or fresh vegetables is a luxury that could compromise our ability to pay rent.
Labor is clearly trying to win support by raising welfare payments by $40 a fortnight, but nothing will meaningfully change for me. I’ll still be trying to get by in an exploitative job market, facing the rising costs of everything in a world that is getting increasingly harsh as the climate crisis deepens.
I have a job. Multiple, in fact. I’m a swim instructor, artist and part-time horticulture student. Unfortunately, the value of these roles is not enough to meet my required mutual obligations to continue receiving my Centrelink payment. I still need to apply for eight jobs a month to keep my payment.
I love my job at the pool but my shifts are casual and my hours are irregular, so I can’t make enough to live on. This year I was proud to get some art commissions, but they weren’t ongoing, so they aren’t recognised as jobs by the system. I’m constantly juggling multiple responsibilities, doing four or five things at once.
Another part of my obligations include attending an in-person appointment with a job provider. I keep getting pushed around to different companies; the increased bureaucracy means more time spent at appointments that I could be using to take shifts or study.
And despite the extra administrative work I put in, none of it has helped me find secure, ongoing work. I’m constantly pushed towards entry-level positions that often have no relevance to my work experience. Their “support” requires me to come in an extra day a month for job info sessions that are of no real value and force me to skip study or forgo more shifts so that I’m not cut off from the program. The resources spent policing me could be better allocated towards raising the payment rate above the poverty line, or creating decent jobs that are genuinely needed in my community; things like teaching people how to swim, building community with art, or growing vegetables and supporting local food production.
My struggles are not unique; every young person I know is facing similar difficulties. Our landlords are demanding more rent despite the fact none of our wages have gone up. Supermarkets and power companies are price-gouging essential goods. Everyone I know on jobseeker and youth allowance are constantly hustling. They are some of the hardest working people I’ve met, but their accomplishments go unrecognised.
We are trying to figure ourselves out, plan for the future, and even organise and problem solve for our communities, but all of this feels impossible when we are unsure if we’ll even be able to afford to eat next week.
I’m disappointed in Anthony Albanese for ignoring calls from backbenchers and his government’s own economic advisory committee to substantially raise the rate of jobseeker and youth allowance. The poorest of us continue to struggle, but his government is still pushing through the stage-three tax cuts, guaranteeing more money for the wealthiest Australians. I had hoped the election of a Labor government would mean more governing for everyday people instead of big business and billionaires – but my hopes were misplaced.
The young people I know care deeply about the future and building a better world. That’s why I am part of an organisation that is fighting for jobs, public services and a safe climate for all. The young members of our movement have been organising around Australia, having conversations in our communities about people’s experience of the cost of living and climate crisis. We’ve been making submissions to the Senate inquiries into the cost of living and poverty and speaking directly to our local MPs about these issues.
What we hear again and again is that young people are doing it tough, but there are solutions that could make immediate and impactful differences to our lives right now. The government can meaningfully raise the rate of income support. It can also freeze rents, build public housing, create an energy transition authority to coordinate the shift to renewable energy and create the public jobs we urgently need in our communities through a climate jobs guarantee.
If Prime Minister Albanese listened to young people, he could have made this budget a turning point. This could’ve been the budget where we finally started building an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few. I don’t want to struggle through every day; I want to get to work contributing to my community and planning for my future. And I want the government to have my back.
Lil Longman is a founder of the Tomorrow Movement
