Dole up $6 a week

Press, 9 November 1984, Page 2

Dole up $6 a week

Social welfare benefits will be increased $6 a week for married couples and $3.60 a week for single people. The increases will apply to all recipients of the unemployment, widows’, invalids’, • domestic purposes, miners’, sickness and related emergency benefits.

They will also apply to those receiving incometested war pensions and war veterans’ allowances.

Beneficiaries would be helped to cope with the increased cost of living since their last adjustmenl. and with the higher costs resulting- from the Budget, said the Minister of Social

Welfare, Mrs Hercus. The adjustment takes the basic married couple benefit rate to $162.46 a week and the single rate to $97.48 a week.

As an unemployment benefit is taxed where there are no dependent children, the new rate for such people will be $134.21 for a married couple and $86.40 for a single person aged 20 or over.

The child supplement will be increased from $6 to $8 a week, to apply to all children of married couples and for the second and subsequent children of solo parents. This means that a married couple with one child will have their total benefit increased from $162.46 to $170.46, taking into account the increase in the basic benefit as well.

Solo parents will have the supplement for their first child increased from $56.58 a week to $58.98. Taking into account the increase in the basic benefit as well, this means they will now get $156.46 a week, an increase of $6. Beneficiaries under 18 (or under 20 for unemployment beneficiaries) will get an increase of $3.60 to $75.02 a week. For unemployment beneficiaries, this will be $66.51 a week after tax, an increase of $5.29. National superannuitants will also get the $6 and $3.60 a week increases. The new gross rate for married couples will be $215.40 a week and for single people, $130.30 a week. The net married rate will be $172.78, or $86.39 each, and the net single rate, $102:67. Where National Superannuation is taxed at the secondary rather than the prime ‘rate, a married person will get $72.39’ a week and a single superannuitant $87.40 a week. Orphans and war orphans get an increase of $1.75 a week, taking the ;; orphans’ benefit from $46.30 a week to $48.05, and the war orphans’ pension from $47.35 a week to $49.10. .-’ - Emergency maintenace allowances will be increase by $6 to $140.46 a.week, and the rate for extra children will rise to $8 a week a child.

The new rates for sickness and unemployment beneficiaries will start on December 6 and for all

other beneficiary groups on December 11. They are in addition to the usual sixmonthly adjustments, next due in January.