The proportion of working age Australians receiving welfare benefits has fallen to its lowest level in 30 years, Federal Minister for Families and Social Services Paul Fletcher said today.
\nNew Department of Social Services analysis of recently released Australian Bureau of Statistics population data shows that 14.3 per cent of the working-age population was receiving working-age income support payments in June 2018.
\nThis is a sharp drop on the previous year\u2019s level of 15.1 per cent and markedly lower than the figure of 16.5 per cent when Labor left office.
\n\u201cOur plan for a stronger economy is working,\u201d Mr Fletcher said.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve created more than 1.2 million jobs and we\u2019re getting people off welfare and into work.
\n\u201cIn fact, over the last year, full-time employment growth has accounted for 63.1 per cent of the total increase in employment.\u201d
\nMr Fletcher said the Government\u2019s success stood in sharp contrast to Labor\u2019s plan, announced today.
\n\u201cLabor want to junk the principle of mutual obligation that has reduced welfare dependency to record lows and helped create 1.2 million new jobs. They want and consign many more Australians to a life of welfare dependency,\u201d Mr Fletcher said.
\n\u201cLabor\u2019s plan means welfare payments would balloon again and they\u2019d be paid for by higher taxes on those working.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s taken sustained hard work by the Liberal National Government to steadily bring down the share of the working population which depends on welfare.
\n\u201cBut Labor\u2019s announcement today confirms that if they get into government they will abandon our successful approach.
\n\u201cThe figures are very clear – the share of the working population on welfare always goes up under a Labor Government.\u201d
\nMr Fletcher said labour force participation increased to 65.7 per cent in November 2018, which was close to a record high.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve brought unemployment down from 5.7 per cent when Labor left office to 5.1 per cent,\u201d Mr Fletcher said.
\n\u201cThe best form of welfare is a job – and today\u2019s figures show that our plan to generate more jobs and get more Australians off of welfare is working.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The proportion of working age Australians receiving welfare benefits has fallen to its lowest level in 30 years, Federal Minister for Families and Social Services Paul Fletcher said today. New Department of Social Services analysis of recently released Australian Bureau of Statistics population data shows that 14.3 per cent of the working-age population was receiving … Continue reading “Welfare dependence drops to lowest level in 30 years”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}