Taxpayers are shelling out close to $200 billion to support over 768,375 people living on dole.
The Daily Telegraph reports that one in five Australians is on welfare which has ballooned country’s welfare bill to almost $200 billion a year.
The report states that the number of Australians claiming the dole had reached 768,375 in March this year, up from 453,793 2005.
Social Services Minister Christian Porter agreed that the dole system needed to be tightened up.
“It’s clear there are too many people in the welfare system with the capacity to work,’’ Porter said. We need to find a better way of helping people become self-reliant.”
Payments coming under the welfare budget system are projected to increase from $158.6 billion this financial year to $191.8 billion in 2019-20 with the total number of recipients from 2005-2015 increasing from 4.4 million to 5.2 million.
Porter said the government is attempting to encourage people to seek out work rather than live off the taxpayer.
“Part of what the government has sought to achieve is to identify people who have a fair and reasonable capacity to work, but who are on a payment type that imposes no real obligation on them to search for work, and have those individuals move to the Newstart system where there are obligations,’’ Porter told The Daily Telegraph.
Online Source: SBS.
