While pensions and the dole rise, carers are being crushed by the spiralling cost of living.
From 20 September Pensions and the dole rose while many carers continue to receive as little as 43 cents to $3.26 an hour to care for an aged, disabled, infirm, or incapacitated person 24/4, 365 days of the year.
Among Australia’s most disadvantaged and vulnerable, carers are living way below the poverty line and are the victim of government sanctioned slave labour and sweatshop policies.
Many mistakenly believe family and kinship carers are one and the same as paid support workers.
Unlike paid support workers, carers are not entitled to receive the national minimum wage, superannuation, holiday leave, and other various statutory entitlements and benefits.
The Australian Fair Work Commission lifted the minimum wage from July 2023 for a 38 hour working week to $23.23 an hour, $882.74 a week, $1,765.48 per fortnight, or $45,902.48 per year.
Whereas those receiving Carer Payment get 62.12% of the national minimum wage, those in receipt of Carer Allowance only get 8.20% for working in excess of four times more hours than the average worker.
Yet at the same time, those receiving JobSeeker payment at $749.20 a fortnight, or $19,479.20 per year get 42.44% of the national minimum wage.
The latest Department of Social Services figures for the June 2023 quarter indicate that of the 808,150 recipients of the JobSeeker payment, 588,715 (or 72.85%) have been receiving it for more than one year, and 511,700 (or 63.32%) are still on the dole after two (2) years.
Rubbing salt into the wound, on Carer Allowance one gets only 19.33% of the dole.
Some on the dole do absolutely nothing; there is no incentive to work, they claim it for an average of 5 or more years, and get 417.4% more than a fulltime 24/7, 365 day a year unpaid carer.
Carers don’t just play in integral part in Australia's aged care, health and disability sectors, they underpin them.
Carers save the government and the Australian taxpayer more 77.9 billion dollars a year!
Family carers need, and rightly deserve the same respect, recognition and comparable financial remuneration as paid support workers; they should be valued, not taken advantage of.
If you haven't already, please sign, share and sponsor this petition with family, friends, and reach out to the media.
We need your help to expose how the government is exploiting carers as slave labour.