Unemployment and poverty: the week after Anti-Poverty Week

Right now the JobSeeker unemployment benefit is about 1.49% of the base salary - about $26,346 - of the chief executives of the top 200 companies on the Australian Stock Exchange.

JobSeeker is $393 per week.

Some relativities

That base salary for CEOs does not include bonuses and other top-ups, which take the average total for the top 100 to nearly $53,000 / week and $30892 / week in the top 100-200.

In his final year the previous Reserve Bank Governor, Philip Lowe, was paid 56.1 times more than an unemployed person. Soon, the Reserve Bank’s Annual Report will tell us about the relativity of the new Governor, Michelle Bullock.

Lowe’s final year pay of $1,147,465, and Bullock’s soon-to-be-known, is what they get for managing unemployment. In their religious devotion to their economic “theory” increasing unemployment, putting more people on $393 / week, and using higher interest rates to get inflation down.

The unemployment benefit is 77% of the poverty line for a single person, currently $496.62.

The Australian Council Of Social Services uses a different approach to measure the poverty line: either 50% or 60% of median incomes. Median incomes are $1300 per week for all employees, $1509 for men, and $1130 for women.

This puts the JobSeeker payment at 60.5% of their poverty line: $393 relative to $650 per week.

Unemployed workers relative to employed workers

$393 per week means the Jobseeker payment is

⁃             42.9% of the National Minimum Wage, currently $915.90.

⁃             68.7% of the age and the disability pensions total rate, currently $572 per week.

⁃             19.5% of males average weekly earnings $2014.30.

⁃             22% of women’s average weekly earnings $1782.80.

⁃             20.4% of combined average weekly earnings, currently $1923.40.

Anti-poverty week

We have just had Anti-Poverty Week. It is meant to be a time and opportunity to learn about and act against poverty. It was quite a puny affair.

On Monday last week, Foodbank released its 2024 Hunger Report. The Report said:

“Australia has been grappling with a growing food security crisis in recent years, as

highlighted by the Foodbank Hunger Reports for 2022 and 2023. The primary driver was

the rising cost of living, particularly for food, energy, and housing, as well as natural

disasters, inadequate income support, unemployment and underemployment and the

lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Nearly 2 million Australian households (19%) have still experienced severe food insecurity in the past 12 months. The increased demand for food relief experienced by Foodbanks in the past year is evidence of the persistent struggle of these families.”

On ABC’s Radio National, the CEO of Foodbank gave a graphic and articulate description of the persistent severity of this crisis.

ACOSS proposed that the JobSeeker unemployment benefit be raised to the total pension rate, at least. However, even this does not take into account that the current pension system now puts increasing numbers of pensioners on the edge of or below the poverty line.

That would lift JobSeeker from $52 to at least $82 per day.

Lead researcher for ACOSS, Peter Davidson, elaborated on ACOSS’ research and its proposal at the Living Standards Symposium in Melbourne last week, organized by the Centre for Future Work and the Carmichael Centre. His presentation will be available soon, but a bit of it can be found here.

ACOSS also stresses that in Australia there is no national definition or measure of poverty. Their proposal calls for one.

Neither the Anti-Poverty Centre nor the Australian Unemployed Workers Union were at the Melbourne Symposium. (24/10/24: CORRECTION: I APOLOGISE FOR GETTING THIS WRONG. BOTH ORGANISATIONS WERE INVITED AND WERE REPRESENTED.)

However, the Anti-Poverty Centre criticized “the poverty industry” for not “prioritizing the expertise of people in poverty.” They are committed to a national People Against Poverty Summit in 2025.

Other “forces”

The Australian Industry Group, a major employers’ organization, said nothing about poverty during Anti-Poverty Week.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions offered zero public solidarity to unemployed workers, except for their contribution to the Living Standards Symposium.

There, one of its two speakers provided a detailed overview of living standards, poverty and the wage outcomes that influence the current situation. That presentation will be available from the Centre for Future Work soon.

Somewhat astonishingly, the ACTU presentation said not a word about past Annual Wage Reviews, nor the one about to get underway in November-December.

Progressives who turn to the Saturday Paper for sustenance will find nothing about Anti-Poverty Week in the past two issues.

There is no data to show how many of its readers registered that.

Poverty and “Close the Gap”?

Anti-Poverty Week coincided with the first anniversary of the tragic defeat of the Referendum to establish an Aboriginal voice in the Australian Constitution.

There is now intense discussion among aboriginal organizations and their supporters about how to recover the movement for change through the “Closing the Gap” programme.

However, this did not seem to feature specifically in Anti-Poverty Week activities.

Governments and parties

The Labor government did not respond to the ACOSS proposal to lift the unemployment benefit to the pension level. However, back in July, the Minister for Social Services, Amanda Rishworth, claimed new eligibility for JobSeeker and rate increases of less than $10 per day would provide “cost-of-living relief” for unemployed and others dependent on government support.

LNP Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton, says not a word about the unemployment benefit or poverty in his false claims to be a champion of the “working poor”.

The Greens do feature anti-poverty on their home page and, leading into Anti-Poverty week proposed a new Poverty and Inequality Commission “to examine the level of poverty in Australia; review the adequacy of social security payments; and develop a national definition of poverty.”

However, their proposed JobSeeker rate at above the poverty line falls short of the new ACOSS proposal.

Transaction and movement politics

The lives of unemployed people and other Australians living near or below the poverty line are now determined by a strategy of policy development, dominated by policy wonks from advocacy organizations, whose primary activity after working out analysis and policy, is to argue the case for policy change to politicians and in the media.

The outcome, such as it is, is done to them rather than something they have organized to pursue and achieve through actions in their own right.

Transactional politics” is one way to describe this alternative to what is wrong with the unemployment benefit and other dimensions of the poverty and standard of living crisis.

Consultation, not negotiation is the prime method of engagement with government representatives. It’s all “oh so polite”. 

And it’s not working.

The organizations and their leaders show no inclination or determination to develop a movement that builds to a crescendo of power in which politicians from all parties are forced to agree and do what is required: to “raise the rate”.

A movement requires a different strategy and a different approach to policy, demands and strategy, flavoured by a “vibe” of intensifying determination and defiance.

Ideas for a movement

For further discussion, here are 4 ideas for those who want “movement politics” driven by the unemployed and others living in poverty or trending towards it.

How do we create a national event for unemployed and other organizations of people interested in building a movement that pursues the prime demands of low-income Australians?

Let’s escalate the direct attack on the rich and powerful corporations that organize the distribution of wealth in their favour. Let’s put them on the hook. They run the system. Let’s make them squirm with a demand for a maximum wage that sets an upper limit on what executives of corporations are paid. For example, does 10 times the minimum wage per week make sense? That would sharpen the public “conversation”.

If not, what else?

Soon, the Annual Wage Review gets underway when the Fair Work Commission announces its timetable for the Review based on the requirements of the Fair Work Act. The ACTU’s intent to get rid of junior rates is a good development that will prove attractive. Let’s have a “movement-based” claim that deliberately seeks to attract younger workers who are not yet members by organizing meetings and other actions in which they learn what unionism and class solidarity mean, and, dare it be said, how the wage-setting system works. 

In the middle of the AWR, there will be a Federal Budget and probably an election. Let’s dovetail the AWR demand for a JobSeeker increase to at least the pension rate with the AWR campaign.