Economic Inclusion

On 11 March, the Federal Government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee (EIAC) released its 2025 report, which provided 10 recommendations to enhance economic inclusion and to inform the Government’s decision-making for the 2025-26 Federal Budget.   

Among the key recommendations are priorities Anglicare WA has been calling for and strongly encouraging the Federal Government to implement to enable Australians to have access to life’s necessities, including a liveable income and a safe and secure home. 

These included the EIAC’s recommendation to substantially increase the rates of working-age payments including Job Seeker, increase the rate and eligibility for Commonwealth Rent Assistance in the 2025-26 Budget, improve the employment services system, and provide universal access to high-quality early childhood education and care. 

In a similar vein to the EIAC report, the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre report titled Youth in Focus: Navigating wellbeing in a changing world highlighted the impact of cost-of-living pressures on young Australians and provided several recommendations including: 

• more targeted and meaningful cost-of-living relief measures and government-led interventions; 

• encouraging secure, rewarding employment conditions; 

• improving housing affordability and homeownership rates for young people; and  

• increasing the base rate of income support and introducing a national program to end child poverty. 

With poverty levels rising and housing affordability increasingly out of reach for many Western Australians across generations, Anglicare WA has found persistently high community support for raising the rate over recent years.  

In our survey conducted in November 2022 in partnership with UWA’s Business School, we found 77% of respondents agreed that JobSeeker should be either slightly or much higher than it currently is. This is in line with previous survey data commissioned through Painted Dog Research which found similar levels of support in 2020 and 2021.