Drip-fed welfare

ONE in six Tasmanian children lives in a family where no one works and Federal Government agencies lay the blame for the lost generation on welfare "largesse".

However, a leading Tasmanian social welfare agency says that far from enjoying an easy life, those people who are living on New-start are actually living well below the poverty line.

Unemployed families in Tasmania now outnumber the "working families" in which both parents have full-time jobs.

Damning new data reveals that 612,416 Australian children, or one in eight, have both parents out of work.

And in Tasmania, shocking statistics show that 18,149 children, or 17 per cent, are living in jobless families, according to new Census data provided to the Sunday Tasmanian by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Nearly one in four "couple families" in Tasmania relies on welfare no one works in 23.1 per cent of families, significantly more than the 17.3 per cent of families in which both parents work full-time.

Federal Government agencies are warning that welfare "largesse" is discouraging unemployed parents from getting a job.

A single parent with one child pockets $30,000 a year in welfare payments as much as a cleaner, labourer or shop assistant earns working for the minimum wage.

Four Federal Government agencies, including the departments of Employment and Workplace Relations, Families and Human Services, have warned of welfare "largesse", in a joint submission to the Senate inquiry into the adequacy of Newstart unemployment benefits.

A single parent with one child will receive, on average, about $30,000 a year through the Parenting Payment, Family Tax Benefit, Rent Assistance, supplements for telephone allowance, and a pensioner concession card, the submission states.

"This is the equivalent of working ... 72 hours per fortnight or, essentially, a couple of hours short of a full-time job at minimum wage," it says.

The departments argue jobless single parents have an incentive to work because they will still receive Family Tax Benefit of up to $182 a week, depending on what they earn.

"Nevertheless, with a [welfare] payment of $30,000 per annum ... there can be little doubt the incentive to work is at least partially mitigated by the largesse of the broader social security system," they state in their submission.

In its submission titled No Heart in Newstart, Uniting Care Tasmania argues, along with other welfare agencies, that Newstart should be increased by at least $50 a week.

The organisation says that Australia provides the second-lowest unemployment benefit as a percentage of the average wage earned in the developed world.

"It is difficult to find an Australian anywhere who considers that $35 a day is an adequate amount to meet even the most basic of living costs. Yet that is what is expected of Newstart recipients," the submission says.

"Even the Federal Government's 2009 Henry Tax Review recommended an increase and did not accept the oft-peddled myth that if Newstart allowance was increased it could act as a disincentive for the unemployed to seek work."

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