Government ignores calls from its own experts to lift ‘seriously inadequate’ jobseeker rate

Unemployment benefit rates are at ‘such an inadequate level that they create a barrier to paid work’, committee finds

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The Albanese government will not substantially lift jobseeker payments despite its own poverty experts calling for an increase to the “seriously inadequate” unemployment support.

On Tuesday the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, and social services minister, Amanda Rishworth, released the report of the interim economic inclusion committee, which found that the dire level of jobseeker is acting as a barrier to entering the workforce as jobseekers don’t have enough to meet the “essentials of life”.

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