The issue of unemployment and welfare reform and the links between them have been kept on the front - well middle - burner in the media today with more comments from Barnaby Joyce, the Salvation Army and the CFMEU see http://theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16965175%255E2702,00.html.
The Salvos deserve special praise because their employment services arm is a major beneficiary of government largesse. Will some of the other big players now step forward and support them?
My post yesterday was more concerned about underemployment, though of course this is linked to unemployment. I was nevertheless pleasantly surprised, via a letter in today's Crikey, to see that in WA there exists an Organisation of Un(der)employed People. They don't seem to have a website but in a previous incarnation appear to have called themselves a Union - surely the union movement hasn't forced them to change their title? They, with many others (albeit hardly a representative sample of Australian society) gave evidence to a parliamentary committee in 2003 http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/ewrwp/paidwork/appendixd.htm.
Mary Jenkins, the Secretary of the Organisation (formerly known as the Union), gives a graphic example in her letter to Crikey:
A person on Newstart can earn $62 a week without paying extra tax. This will not cover the resent rise in the cost of living. If they earn up to $120 extra they pay 50c in the dollar tax, which means half of what they earn goes to the government. Anything over $120 they pay the Government 70c in the dollar. So these people are working for 30c if they earn more than $120 above the Newstart allowance.
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