{"id":3318,"date":"2026-05-02T08:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T08:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/3318\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T08:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T08:18:15","slug":"centrelink-payments-should-be-increased-amid-cost-of-living-crisis-government-agency-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/3318\/","title":{"rendered":"Centrelink payments should be increased amid cost of living crisis, government agency says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Skyrocketing everyday expenses are becoming harder to cover for those on Centrelink<\/a> payments, according to a government agency.<\/p>\n

The cost of living was the most pressing issue raised by the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee (EIAC) in its fourth annual report, released ahead of the federal budget<\/a> on May 12.<\/p>\n

The committee called on the government to provide more in social benefits to catch up with soaring costs, such as rent and groceries.<\/p>\n

Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Arrow<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation has since deteriorated and further increases are required,\u201d the EIAC said.<\/p>\n

It said the plea to raise payments for JobSeeker, Youth Allowance and the Remote Area Allowance (RAA) is the committee\u2019s \u201ctop priority and repeats calls made in previous reports\u201d.<\/p>\n

The RAA was highlighted by the committee as being of \u201ccritical need for a substantial lift\u201d, while adding to the Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) would also help reduce stress on housing.<\/p>\n

It also called for the government to \u201cimmediately stop all Centrelink payment penalties, including suspensions, reductions and cancellations related to compulsory activities\u201d.<\/p>\n

The government on March 20 increased Jobseeker payments to $808.70 for a single person or as high as $1,047.30 for a single principal carer.<\/p>\n

But that amount was still well below the amount needed to comfortably afford to rent in Australia.<\/p>\n

Anglicare Australia\u2019s annual Rental Affordability Snapshot<\/a> found just one of 49,000 rental listings across the nation being affordable to someone on Jobseeker.<\/p>\n

That figure drops to zero for anyone on Youth Allowance, while just 0.2 per cent of rentals would be affordable for a single person on the Age Pension.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe results are stark,\u201d Anglicare Australia said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are not new findings. For many of these groups, affordability has remained at or near zero for much of the time this data has been collected.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven households in full-time work on the minimum wage now face limited access to affordable housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cFamilies who once had a broader range of options can now afford a much smaller share of the market.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver time, the gap between incomes andrents has widened.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Prominent agent sounds alarm on property tax shake-up<\/p>\n

1 min read<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Families returning to intergenerational living amid housing crisis<\/p>\n

2 min read<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Skyrocketing everyday expenses are becoming harder to cover for those on Centrelink payments, according to a government agency.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,3220,323,2916,148,4540,3545,4541,227,152,4542,149],"class_list":["post-3318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-budget","tag-business","tag-centrelink","tag-federal-politics","tag-finance","tag-housing","tag-housing-market","tag-lifestyle","tag-news","tag-personal-finance","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}