Raise the Rate for Good
What’s the Problem?
The JobSeeker Payment is just $48 a day and Youth Allowance is just $38 a day.
To put these rates of payment in perspective, it costs approximately $80 to fill a small car with unleaded fuel. Median rents for a unit are around $460 per week, or $65 a day.
The ACT has the highest average weekly earnings in Australia, and yet around one in 10 Canberrans – or 38,000 – live in poverty. We see that the cost-of-living crisis combined with pressures of rising inflation mean many Canberra households cannot afford the fundamentals of a healthy life such as housing, food, transport, health services, and energy.
What You Can Do
Join ACTCOSS and ACOSS in supporting the #RaiseTheRateForGood campaign.
For many people, trying to survive on $48 a day means going without medication and medical care, couch surfing, living in a car or sleeping rough.
We need to Raise the Rate for Good so that everyone has enough to cover the basics of life, like a roof overhead and food on the table.