TRANSCRIPT
Saba Al-Khamisi is a recipient of JobSeeker, the government's fortnightly payment for people unemployed and looking for work.
Recently she's had to move houses because she couldn't afford the rent.
"Rent is $550 a week. I receive (from Centrelink) $600 in two weeks. How am I supposed to make this work? How am I supposed to live my day? Will I have to give up my medication? Will I have to give up food?"
They are questions an increasing number of Australians like Saba are facing - and the stress takes a heavy toll.
"My mental health condition has worsened. I became angry. I was stressed 24 hours a day because I keep thinking, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do to live?"
A new report by Anglicare Australia shows Saba's situation is not uncommon.
The annual Cost of Living report found that after paying rent, transport and food a single person on the Parenting Payment has just 3 dollars left a day.
A family of four with two parents on Jobseeker is falling short 17 dollars a week.
And a person under 35 living alone on the same rate is out of pocket 135 dollars each week.
Anglicare chief executive Kasy Chambers says people are experiencing extreme stress.
"This is putting people into a mental health crisis when every day you really are wondering how on earth you're going to feed yourself and your children and keep a roof over your head."
Despite the dire numbers the report outlines, Kasy Chambers says it was in fact a conservative estimate of the financial pressure people are under.
"We only looked at basic weekly costs. We didn't include utilities, so power bills. We didn't include telecommunications and data, we didn't include medications, we didn't look at those quarterly bills or those annual bills like insurance. So heaven forbid if anything goes wrong, or if someone has an emergency, or - goodness me - people want to have a small luxury like putting their child (in)to a school excursion or (buying) a small birthday present."
Anglicare is one of many welfare groups that have been calling for a rise in Centrelink payments for years.
But the government says it is doing what it can to help people receiving benefits.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers.
"In every single budget you work out the best, most responsible way to help people. We understand people are under pressure. That's why there is such substantial cost of living relief delivered in more than one way."
Last year, the Treasurer increased JobSeeker, along with other support payments, by 40 dollars a fortnight.
But recipients and welfare groups have argued the boost - which adds up to just 2.85 dollars extra a day - is not enough.
Anglicare Australia says indexing Centrelink payments against the consumer price index, instead of a measure that rises with essential living costs, means payments are well below the poverty line.
Kasy Chambers says raising Centrelink payments is an essential investment.
"We know that costs money, but there's lots of other things that cost money too. We'd also say that the cost of not doing it is, in some ways, greater. There's 800,000 children in Australia who live below the poverty line every day. And that's what we're doing when we keep those benefits low."
