Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers got here face-to-face with a single mum struggling to deal with price of residing pressures in a solo look on the ABC’s Q&A program on Monday evening.
Jessica Blowers informed the Treasurer she would wrestle to pay her hire till the parental fee modifications introduced within the May 9 federal price range come into impact.
In final week’s price range, Labor lifted the age cut-off for the fee from eight to 14, after a decade of remorse inside the occasion over a choice to slash welfare help for single dad and mom. From September, about 57,000 single dad and mom will obtain an additional $176.90 per fortnight.
Previously, almost 1 / 4 of 1,000,000 dad and mom – principally girls – obtained the fee and had been compelled onto the decrease JobSeeker fee when their baby turned eight.
Ms Blowers mentioned her daughter will flip eight on the finish of August and she or he doesn’t know the way she’s going to cope when she loses the $176.90 a month.
“That’s a whole month I won’t be able to pay my rent, because the payment of JobSeeker won’t be enough to cover it, so I would like to know what measures the government has in place to bridge the gap that I and other parents in similar situations will find ourselves in,” she requested the Treasurer.
Dr Chalmers mentioned September was the earliest the change could possibly be made.
“We’ve tried to do is bring that change in as soon as possible. We think September is the soonest that we can do it,” he mentioned.
“I understand that that means a few weeks for you going from the current payment onto JobSeeker and (then) back onto the single parenting payment.
“I would love to avoid that if we could, but what we’re trying to do is provide this extra assistance … that you need and deserve. If we could avoid those couple of weeks, we would, but September is the best we can do.”
Ms Blowers reiterated that she was undecided she may survive for that month.
“At the moment my entire pension is my rent. I live off Family Tax Benefit A and B a fortnight,” she mentioned.
“My rent has gone up from $900 a fortnight to $960 a fortnight. What am I going to do? What is my choice, other than I am doing my best to get a job so that I can keep a house over my daughter’s head.
“When I’m applying for the jobs, I am faced with being told that more than 100 other candidates have applied for the same jobs – I’m not sure how I am supposed to compete against 100 other people for one job.”
Dr Chalmers was additionally pressed by a father-of-two who mentioned he and his spouse had been working three jobs to make ends meet.
“It used to be possible to raise a family and purchase a home on one income. Mr Treasurer, that is no longer an option for a lot of us in Western Sydney. How many incomes do you think families will need in future generations?” Gary Azar requested him.
Dr Chalmers mentioned wage stagnation was a giant situation, however one which was slowly altering.
“After almost 12 months in office we have been able to shift the needle on wages growth. One of the things I’m proudest of in the economy is that we now have wages growing the quickest that they have in aggregate since 2012,” he mentioned.
“They are forecast to grow next year at the fastest rate since 2009, (but) I know that that isn’t felt evenly across the workforce or across our economy.”
Mr Azar mentioned one of many greatest hits to his household’s price range was the price of childcare, then coming off a hard and fast mortgage fee.
Childcare prices will change from July 1.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
