It’s not lost on Peter Maidorn that he is the same age as the prime minister.
The 62-year-old graduated from school in 1978 – an era when he felt like there were endless opportunities.
“I mean, 40, 30 years ago, rent was affordable. You could live on next to nothing,” Maidorn says.
Now, living off jobseeker, he barely scrapes by. He hardly leaves his house in Crystal Brook, South Australia, he hardly showers, he hardly eats meat. He says being poor in this country is getting harder.
Experts say the jobseeker rate is too low – and in the span of just a few days, two major reports have called for it to be lifted.
On Sunday evening, the Grattan Institute called for the payment to be lifted by $60 a week, as part of a series of recommended policy priorities for the next federal government. Last Tuesday, the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee recommended bringing it to 90% of the pension – an increase of $126 a week.
It comes as a report from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research in the UK revealed Australia had the lowest welfare payment in the OECD after the US, the UK and Greece.
As Australia heads into an election year, new data from the Australian Council of Social Service has shown there are 30 electorates around the country where there are more people on income support than the electoral margin between the two main parties. The organisation says it proves people living below the breadline make a “significant voting block”.
‘Letting people down’
Maidorn left the workforce early after his body broke down. The normal jobseeker fortnightly payment is $781, but he gets $842 because he is over 55 and has an added energy supplement.
He doesn’t spend a lot of money – he just doesn’t have it. He doesn’t drink alcohol, avoids red meat, and wears $7 shirts from Kmart and the same pair of thongs all year round.
He hardly uses the air-con – and if he does, it never goes below 25C. He refuses to use the heater in winter, instead opting to wrap himself in blankets.
“I don’t water my garden,” he says. “I have the shower on low and don’t shower all the time, but if going out of the house I mostly do.”
He has been spared rapid rental increases, because he used his small inheritance to buy a former housing commission home for $120,000.
To pay for his medical bills and to put petrol in his car to attend his job provider meetings, he uses his super which supplements his payments. But it doesn’t give him much extra and it is drying up fast: he only has $70,000 left.
As of January, 858,705 people across the country lived off jobseeker, with 639,970 getting the full rate, and 150,885 on a partial rate. Others may have had their payment suspended or are on the system but receiving no payment.
Of those on the payment, just under half – or 353,940 – have been assessed as only having a partial capacity to work, often due to an ongoing medical condition. And 321,325 people had been on the payment for less than a year.
This week, jobseeker recipients will receive a small bump as the payment is indexed, but the Acoss CEO, Cassandra Goldie, has called on the government to lift it to at least the pension rate of $82 a day.
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“I think the community believes in a fair system that helps people out when they’re going through tough times, but our current system is letting people down,” Goldie says. “We absolutely think this will be an election issue because so many are affected by a government’s decision to raise the rate of these payments.”
‘Really struggling’
On Sunday evening the Grattan Institute released its Orange Book – a policy blueprint for the next government. The report calls increasing jobseeker “a quick win”.
Grattan’s economic policy program director, Brendan Coates, says research shows the low rate hampers people’s ability to get a job.
“You know, even with a $60-a-week increase, it would still only be 23% of average full-time means or about half of the full-time minimum wage,” Coates says. “That’s an increase that we think is, at a minimum, necessary.”
Coates says even if it was lifted by $60 a week, people would still “be really struggling”. “But they would have more money in their pocket to cover essentials.”
Neither of the major parties has promised to lift the rate. The social services minister, Amanda Rishworth, did not respond to questions from Guardian Australia.
The shadow social services minister, Michael Sukkar, said the Coalition’s key focus was creating jobs.
“We know that getting a job is the best way to improve the living standards of people and their families,” Sukkar told Guardian Australia. “Few countries provide the strong safety net available to Australians.
“Jobseeker is not a salary or wage replacement. It is a safety net for people, set at an appropriate level while they look for work. It is funded by taxpayers and needs to be managed responsibly.”
Speaking from his small lounge room in regional South Australia, Maidorn wonders if the prime minister understands what it is like to live off jobseeker.
“Labor’s given up on trying to change it,” he says. “Who’s going to actually do anything about it? No one.”