Political consultant Jim Middleton has warned that the cost of extending the JobSeeker and JobKeeper payments could exceed the government’s projections in the case of further economic downturn. The Morrison government on Tuesday unveiled a plan to extend the JobKeeper program to March next year as well as the JobSeeker payments until the end of 2020 at lower rates from the end of September.
“My word of caution though is this it assumes on the part of Treasury that the economy, the improvement in growth we saw recently, will continue through the final quarter of the year. “If it does not then, of course, the number of people who will be on JobSeeker, if not JobKeeper, will increase and go above and beyond the government’s estimates on what it’s going to cost which is around an additional $20 billion.
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jimmiddleton So what do you do? Let people die homeless and penniless in the streets? Maybe our expectations of our standard of living may have to be lowered as we come out of this. Maybe price gouging in real estate, entertainment travel etc should stop.
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jimmiddleton But they saved $60B Or are they now admitting that wasn't a saving it was a shifting, a shifting sideways from JobKeeper to JobSeeker, so it wasn't a saving at all
jimmiddleton That’s all fine and dandy but if the governor of the RBA is on-board then obviously the government is doing something right. Without the government support, the economy will completely collapse. It’s already on life support so, flicking the switch off, that would be it
jimmiddleton How does stopping the schemes save this country from economic downturn? Less support will throw thousands into poverty and smash disposal income that is essential to generate jobs. Debt is the global collateral damage of a pandemic. Less $ in the system now = social disaster...
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