These two comments express a lot about what struggles those on JobSeeker who are in a casual work cycle across years experience.

JobSeekers have the lowest income /earnings cap of all payments. They can earn up to $550 approx before payment is gone - after this you report for six fortnights (12 weeks) and then you no longer need to report. But if the job is casual or you’re on Probabtion and it ends after 3 mnths you find yourself needing to reapply for JobSeeker - and you’re potentially still not earning as much as someone on the minimum wage after they have worked 38 hours a week - due to working less hours as a casual - even on higher rates, less hours as a casual can see you earning a lot less than is enough to live on. Note: anyone on a Pension can earn double what a JobSeeker can before loss of payment - about $1,025 a week and any Pension payment is over $300 more than JobSeeker.

If you are unlucky enough to gain employment and end up off JobSeeker only needing to reapply again as the job didn’t become permanent work, you will need to reapply to Centrelink, this is a tedious process where they always lose something and supplying data unchanged appears a problem. Simple things like access to phone credit and wifi can be huge hurdles when in poverty/ or experiencing housing stress.

The people in and out of casual or temporary work assignments can’t get loans. Can’t get ahead. Are trapped.

Raise the rate for all for good!