Unemployment angels and demons

No matter how you twist them the facts about poverty in the lucky country just keep shaming us.

You can see the tip of the iceberg on the streets of our capital cities and regional centres where you will come across people whose lives are exposed to the elements and to the eyes of all who pass by.

We are even seeing new divisions emerging among low-income households! Fourteen years ago the unemployment benefit was 91 per cent of the single pension. Now it is only 65 per cent.

Peter Whiteford, of the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of NSW projects a fall to a miserable 33 per cent. He notes that, after you take out the costs of the cheapest capital city accommodation your average single Newstart benefit recipient was left to survive on $16.50 a day. 

Australia spends less on transfer payments than the average of the wealthier nations in the OECD.

Data released this week and prepared by the St Vincent de Paul Society's Victorian Policy and Research Manager, Gavin Dufty, on relative price changes, has shown that people on low incomes are being forced to make such devastating choices as whether to go the doctor or buy food. As he puts it: 'to survive today you've got to compromise the future'.

The research shows that the price of essentials such as electricity and rent has gone through the roof over the past six years while discretionary items such as entertainment and holidays have increased only a little or, in the case of high street fashion, have actually gotten cheaper.

Two months ago I received an email from a young man in Queensland. He was writing to thank Vinnies for the stance it takes on the side of people who are demonised for being unemployed. He told me his story. Here are some bits of it: