As a recipient of JobSeeker, Aeryn Brown is left with less than $450 to live off for a fortnight after rent, electricity and tax are taken out.
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When other bills are due, it's less - at the end of April she will have $69 to last two weeks, and one time she had just 71 cents to make it through.
"I strictly budget, I account for every cent I spend," Ms Brown said.
Come Monday, the JobSeeker payment will increase in line with the consumer price index, to a fortnightly payment of $693.10 - about an extra $1.76 a day.
But Ms Brown, of Berkeley in NSW's Illawarra region, and social welfare organisations say that is nowhere near enough to cover the costs of living, especially as they continue to climb.
"It's unable to provide people a basic standard of living," Narelle Clay, chief executive officer of Southern Youth and Family Services, said of JobSeeker.
She said no one on an unemployment benefit could afford to rent in the region and unless the cost of housing, food and energy were brought down massively, the rate of JobSeeker had to rise.
"I see people all the time who can't afford medications, who can't afford their electricity bill, who can't afford the cost of education, and they're trying, they want to do well," she said.
The Australian Council of Social Services and the Australian Unemployed Workers' Union are calling on the federal government to boost income support payments come its May budget.
The AUWU has launched the Nobody Deserves Poverty campaign to put pressure on the government to raise all income support payments to the Henderson Poverty Line, one of the most well-known Australian metrics to calculate poverty levels.
The latest Henderson measure posits that a single person must have income of $610.10 each week to support their basic needs.
Ms Brown wants to see JobSeeker raised at least to the Henderson Poverty Line.
It reached this level when the federal government introduced the temporary COVID supplement in March 2020.
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Ms Brown said the stress that lifted as a result saw her depression go into remission for the first time in nearly a decade.
"For me personally, that made a huge difference," she said.
In its budget submission, ACOSS called on the government to lift the base rates of income support payments like JobSeeker and Youth Allowance to that of the single pension, $513 per week.
Even with Monday's indexation increase, JobSeeker will still be 34 per cent less than the pension and 57 per cent below minimum wage.
Ms Brown is not confident that there will be a substantial increase in JobSeeker when the government delivers the budget.
"They said they'd leave no one behind; obviously people in poverty are nobody, because they're leaving us behind," she said.
Natalie Croxon
Reporter at the Illawarra Mercury, mostly covering social affairs. Previously of the Bendigo Advertiser, Northern Daily Leader and Quirindi Advocate. Our Watch award winner.
Reporter at the Illawarra Mercury, mostly covering social affairs. Previously of the Bendigo Advertiser, Northern Daily Leader and Quirindi Advocate. Our Watch award winner.
