Budget 2020: What's in it for young people?
By Jossie Warnant
The recently announced federal Budget is focused on COVID-19 recovery, providing tax-cuts for middle income earners and heavily investing in manufacturing. With youth unemployment currently sitting at 14.3% and budget forecasts predicting an 8 percent hit to youth wages due to the pandemic, the Budget has placed emphasis on helping young people return to the workforce with new measures such as JobMaker. But there are also key areas the Budget has neglected, including the university sector, the environment and the arts which are likely to negatively impact young people.
The JobMaker Hiring Credit
We’ve had JobSeeker, JobKeeper and now we have JobMaker. This incentive will provide payments to businesses to encourage them to take on additional young job seekers. The aim of this initiative is to help young people access job opportunities as the economy recovers.
The credit will be available to employers for each new job they create over the next 12 months and will be applicable for employees 16-35 years old. The program will cost approximately $4 billion and is predicted to create approximately 450,000 positions. For each new job created, employers will receive $200 for an employee aged 16-29 years old and $100 for employees aged 30-35 years old.
This payment won’t have a direct impact on your income but aims to help employers take on more young workers. To be an eligible employee you must have worked for a minimum of 20 hours per week for the reporting period and have previously received JobSeeker, Youth Allowance or a Parenting payment in one of the previous three months at the time of hiring.
There will also be a similar subsidy for apprentices, where the government will pay 50 percent of the wage of any new apprentice hired. This measure aims to create approximately 100,000 new apprenticeships and will cost $1.2 billion.
Youth Allowance and ABSTUDY
The 2020-21 Budget includes provisions that will make it easier for young people to be considered “independent” if they take on fruit picking work, to allow them to gain access to Youth Allowance and ABSTUDY.
Beginning November 1, young people who undertake seasonal work on a farm and earn over $15,000 will be eligible for the independence certificate needed to gain Youth Allowance or ABSTUDY.
Mental Health Support
The government will introduce further mental health support to deal with increasing levels of mental-health stress created by the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes a $100 million plan to double the annual Medicare subsidised sessions with a psychologist or mental health professional. This raises the number of subsidised sessions from 10 per year to 20.
The Budget will also pump $7 million into mental health support services such as Lifeline, Beyond Blue and Kids Helpline and will provide $45.7 million to expand the Department of Social Services’ Individual Placement and Support program which aims to help young people with mental illness in the workforce.
What’s missing for young people?
The Budget does not include any new provisions to assist the university sector in dealing with the financial stresses of COVID-19. The sector, including USyd have implemented austerity measures including course and job cuts. The only money that has been set aside in the Budget will go towards university research and will not be spent on improving the student experience. This, in combination with the recently approved higher education bill will see an increase in fees for humanities related degrees and students and staff bearing the financial ramifications of the crisis.
This Budget also sees limited new funding for environmental protection and action on climate change. Much of the environment and energy budget consists of previously announced measures such as funding for the government’s technology roadmap to reduce Australia’s emissions and $52 million for the expansion of Australia’s gas industry.
Other than a $53.2 million media reform package, which includes funding for the screen sector, children’s television and screen writing there is also limited new funding for the arts, a sector heavily impacted by the pandemic.