Too old to be hired, too young for the pension | A Current Affair

now the men and women came to work but struggling to live off the Newstart allowance they're all over the age of 50 and now make up a third of New START recipients looking for well 20 jobs a month too young for the age pension holding little hope of ever finding a job again not having the money to pay your bills it's basically to me as a social embarrassment unemployment is bad enough they want to employ young people straight out of college unemployed and being older is devastating - will terminate my life creating social upheaval in our communities you're condemning people to live in poverty for a very long time ask the job experts and they'll tell you every job that's available over five people are out there trying to get that job the poverty line in Australia is considered to be $400 a week the unemployment allowance new start is two hundred and sixty three dollars a week that was designed at a time when people didn't expect to be out of work for very long but unfortunately we have a much different employment situation now stand outside a Centrelink office and watch there's an alarming new trend that few are talking about but the statistics are increasing rapidly 1/3 of all New START recipients are now aged over 50 years when you're older you are discriminated against now New START was originally set up as a short-term benefit for those particularly the young looking for a job a new start on a career path but what if you're an older person who's stalled and needing not a new start but a restart you have perhaps a mortgage health cover car repayments super to build up how on earth do you survive and continue to pay all that when you're someone in your 50s or 60s you don't have a job and get the Newstart allowance of just 37 dollars a day what's the rent cost you fifty three-year-olds melmac na is an unemployed ship and you got to buy your food credit card you Betty has 26 or thousand dollars no goodness for me gee and you use that to live on that's what you figure says what I have been and they take some of this out of your new stuff so when you getting smart 260 a week roughly they take some out of that just to pay this down yeah you're living on nothing pretty much in the last year he has applied for at least 20 jobs a month with not one offer yeah I'd been suddenly without warning made redundant and a job that I knew like the back of my hand many mature-age have found themselves unemployed due to the changes in traditional industries like manufacturing for 17 years Rhonda MacLeod worked for some beam before her job and the factory were closed down she's been out of work and living on new start for two years where I thought I'd get a job easily that's not the case at all anymore the future is not looking very rosy it's looking pretty bleak but she considers herself fortunate for the community housing unit she has been given that takes just a small percentage of her Newstart allowance and the friends and family that support her financially otherwise I'd be out on the street desperate for paid work many older experienced managers and white-collar workers are accepting low-skilled jobs such as traffic controllers and shelfs taggers well I was basically a leader and you know now I'm just an hour Andrew Ralph was once a leading technician at Telstra I was a member of society I'm now forgotten member of society the 54 year old worked for a charity for miserable pay to supplement his Newstart allowance good I get $20.00 a 90 cents for coming here for 15 hours per week yet he still has a house and a family to care for a lot of people that talk to me feel like they're being left behind they're being forgotten they're not being supported Green Senator Rachel seaward says if something doesn't change soon there's going to be an economic disaster for government with a generation of poor people going into retirement and I certainly can't afford health insurance and that's the time that they may in fact need their health insurance and they can't continue to contribute to this super it destroys your pride your confidence it hacks away at you every day Rikki bartels says she is another mature long-term unemployed person through no fault of her own and tired of being labeled by government as a leaner and I want to be in a job and I want to be able to say to people I can go on a holiday I can do this or have retirement hunt but life happens mr. Morrison Cassandra Goldy from the Council for Social Services and Senator c-word say three things need to be done urgently to help our mature unemployed on New START it needs to be increased by at least fifty dollars per week the government right now wants to cut it by four dollars 48 per week people aren't being provided with the skills for the modern workplace and that maybe some of the internet skills that you need you know jobs have changed so radically once you turn 45 there's a real experience of discrimination you are considered to be too old in many cases well that's got to stop with age comes wisdom which is true and and I think you're a lot more reliable as well I have experience qualifications thirty years of working in the industry I have charm I have wit at 62 Rhonda is looking forward to a slightly better life in three years you'd be better off in the old-age pensioner you're looking forward to the future yeah much I've had friends that have been in the same situation and counting down the days and then it's like a celebration I never thought that I would ever say I want to be older in about two weeks the Newstart allowance will be increased in line with the CPI it's expected to be enough to buy a loaf of bread

Channel: A Current Affair

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Keywords: A Current Affair, 9 News, newstart, Interviews, 60 minutes australia, ACA, True Crime, Tracy Grimshaw, australian news, 9news, breaking news, nine news, 60 minutes, A Current Affair Australia, Entertainment, pension, Politics, Celebrity, 9news australia, Tracey, newstart allowance, poverty line

Id: rVFr8OQCzY0

Length: 7min 17sec (437 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 01 2019