Since I turned 22 a few days ago, I became eligible for youth allowance (YA). I work part time at two local pools, averaging about 10 hours a week. I crunched the numbers to see what the maximum hours of work I could do before my payments would get cut and lo and behold - I found that Centrelink rewards laziness by not enticing YA recipients to work more lest they lose their payments! For example, if I worked no more than 7.8 extra hours a week I would be able to get about $44 a week on YA (on top of my usual hours), but the moment I exceeded 7.8 extra hours I'd lose money - it would take me two hours to make $16 (2 hours of work @ $30/h versus $44 for free, doing nothing). Of course, during the schools LTS season I would gladly work 35 hour weeks and forgo the YA, but there's seriously no incentive for anyone to do more than the bare minimum unless there's seriously good hours on offer. I'm aware there's a load of codswallop that is the income bank, but that only really rewards seasonal workers, not people that work regular jobs in between full time study. It's otherwise useless for someone that is employed most weeks of the year.
My parents built up their wealth by working hard. Before I turned 22 I paid tax (not a great amount, but still got taxed). I used to think claiming any government benefits was shameful, but now I feel that legitimate taxpayers not claiming what they're entitled to is just plain wrong. Why let real dole bludgers take a slice of the pie when those that contributed won't or can't?
Why is it that Centrelink encourages laziness and not hard work? I find it slightly ridiculous this system can even exist.
I don't think its rewarding laziness personally, it's like when someone is earning around ~$83k in income, does that person reduce their income by a few thousand by working less so that they change tax brackets? Does that then become the ATO encouraging laziness?