Lets' put it another way - could you live on $11,682 per annum?

Australia's "newstart" unemployment benefit is lower than the pension and getting lower all the time:

(Click to enlarge)



The Unemployment benefit is indexed to CPI; the pension is inedexed to faster-growing wages.

At this rate, by 2050 the unemployment benefit will be only half the pension.

Already Australians on disability pensions (already far too many) are afraid to look for work because if it doesn't work out they are cactus.

Julia Gillard should read the Australia Institute's submission to the Henry Review, from which I have taken the graph.

Happy Easter.