Struggling on the Newstart unemployment benefit in Australia: The experience of a neoliberal form of employment assistance

Abstract

The low level of the Newstart (unemployment benefit) payment has become a major source of concern about Australia's willingness and ability to protect unemployed Australians from poverty. Despite this disquiet, there has been little scholarly examination of the implications of living on Newstart. In this article, through the use of a survey and in-depth interviews, we examine features of everyday life for Newstart recipients in the Sydney area, experiences that reveal the scarring potential of low benefits. The article illustrates that for a majority of interview participants, the most basic items were difficult to purchase and many of the interviewees were living in inadequate and even unsafe situations owing to an inability to afford satisfactory accommodation. For some, their lack of disposable income had severe health implications. Social isolation was a common phenomenon, and many of the interviewees found that the low payment made finding employment a lot more challenging. JEL Codes: I38, J64

Compulsory income management: Combatting or compounding the underlying causes of homelessness?

“…Income support payments are a clear example of such a policy—ideally protecting recipients from homelessness by eroding the relationship between labour market participation and access to housing. As a growing body of literature demonstrates, however, social support systems can also contribute to housing insecurity by failing to provide sufficient funds to cover the basic costs of living (Morris & Wilson ) or—as will be shown—by reducing access to social security payments through welfare conditionality measures.…”

“…Income support payments are a clear example of such a policy-ideally protecting recipients from homelessness by eroding the relationship between labour market participation and access to housing. As a growing body of literature demonstrates, however, social support systems can also contribute to housing insecurity by failing to provide sufficient funds to cover the basic costs of living (Morris & Wilson 2014) or-as will be shown-by reducing access to social security payments through welfare conditionality measures. Third, seemingly "personal" issues such as relationship difficulties, poor health and addiction-as well as a lack of adequate institutional support during relationship and health crises-are often cited as causes of homelessness (Kemp et al 2001;Grace et al 2008;Gronda et al 2011).…”

The economy of smiles: affect, labour and the contemporary deserving poor

“…The presumption of ‘unproductivity’ in the lives of the unemployed is problematized by the imperatives for job seekers to engage in ‘productive’ (work and education) schemes (Adkins ). Through workfare, training, counselling, CV‐building sessions and so on, unemployment has become ‘a highly eventful state’ (Adkins : 635; see, e.g., Morris and Wilson ). In this context, there is widespread take‐up of the language and practices of enterprise in ‘poverty areas’.…”

Using a budget standards approach to assess the adequacy of newstart allowance

“… The social consequence of existing arrangements for the lives of those reliant on NSA is illustrated vividly in the interviews conducted by Morris and Wilson (). …”