One of the many changes that COVID-19 brought to government in Australia was a backflip in thinking about unemployment.
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The Coalition exploded its own myths about social welfare and joblessness when it raised payments to unemployed people by $550 a fortnight in March.
It was in effect an admission that its old payments were not enough to live on. What was good enough for the 730,000 unemployed Australians on Newstart in December was, somehow, not fit for the additional hundreds of thousands made jobless when COVID-19 hit the economy.
The people who have lost their jobs during the pandemic need food and housing no more or less than those unable to find work before the coronavirus.
If anything explains the reason for the government's change of heart on welfare, it is that the coronavirus recession threatened to make more visible the brutality of the old Newstart rate. Such an outcome was politically unacceptable, and threatened to add layers of hardship to a grim national predicament.
When there aren't enough jobs to go around, the best form of welfare is welfare.
Another reason for the government's welfare about-turn is that it realised having hundreds of thousands of people slide into poverty would aggravate the recession.
In all this, what the government admitted was that enforced poverty was bad for the economy and that unemployment was something that jobless people could not always control. COVID-19 exposed the Coalition's old, harsh myths about social welfare for what they were.
As social policy researcher Sue Olney wrote in April, the idea that unemployment is an individual problem can no longer stand, and governments can not use that thinking to justify punitive levels of income support for the unemployed.
It is hard to see how the government can credibly walk back its admissions that its old Newstart payments were too low. Yet that is exactly what it is attempting in cutting the JobSeeker coronavirus supplement by $100 to $150 a fortnight next year.
The coronavirus supplement at its original level lifted people out of poverty and let them afford the basics, such as groceries. Pause for a moment and consider what a cut to the supplement means for people unable to find work. The reduced rate, applying from January to March, is $10 a day more than the old Newstart rate, which had not been increased in real terms for about 25 years.
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The peak social services body, the Australian Council of Social Service, has called for a permanent and adequate rate of income support, letting people cover the basics and rebuild their lives. At the very least, it says, this needs to be $25 per day more compared to the old Newstart rate. This minimal improvement would bring the payment into line with the age pension, and the poverty line.
There's a disconnect in the government's thinking about its social welfare spending during COVID-19. It says winding down the coronavirus supplement will encourage people back into work. The Coalition assumes that there will be jobs for people to find. In fact, unemployment is forecast to rise to about 8 per cent by the end of the year. More than 1.5 million Australians remain unemployed.
The government cannot hide the harshness and confusion of its approach to social welfare with the false and nonsensical slogan that "the best form of welfare is a job". When there aren't enough jobs to go around, the best form of welfare is welfare.
The Coalition might think it can re-establish its myths about unemployment and social welfare, but the harsh reality of the recession will show otherwise.
