Newstart is currently manifestly inadequate and that inadequacy is costing our economy, trapping people in poverty and actively reducing the ability of the unemployed to look for work. There is a significant body of empirical evidence that suggests raising Newstart will create jobs and help stimulate aggregate demand in the Australian economy

There is no reason for Newstart to be as low as it is or as administratively burdensome as it is. Australians who are unable to find a job or who find themselves unemployed are owed support that allows them to cover basic expenses and which facilitates their job search. Raising Newstart is not only the right thing to do, it is the economically prudent thing to do and it is the best way to get people into work. There are no more excuses left – Newstart must be raised and it should happen now.

Key highlights:

• There is a significant body of empirical evidence that suggests raising Newstart will create jobs and help stimulate aggregate demand in the Australian economy. The Deloitte Access Economics report ‘Analysis of the impact of raising benefits” considers the impact of boosting a range of allowance payments. The proposed policy change is a ‘catch up increase’ of $75 a week –an extra $10.71 a day that would be received by around 770,000 Australians receiving the ‘single rate’ of one of these payments.
• This report finds that the introduction of such a policy would have a range of ‘prosperity effects’, boosting the size of the economy and the number of people employed in Australia. The latter effect would result in an additional 12,000 people being in work in 2020-21.
• Newstart contributes to women being pushed into poverty. The policy settings in and around Newstart create a system working against women as they head towards retirement, especially those women aged between 55 and 67. The silos of government policy–workplace, superannuation, housing and social security, including Newstart–are impacting on women disproportionately.