Crikey, I just found out the details of the Jobkeeper payments and there's some money to be made. Two of my kids are at uni, each with a casual part-time job earning between $100 to $200 per week, and now they are going to get $750 each per week for the next 6 months. They both feel like Christmas has come early. There's must be a lot of similar stories around.

Are you sure it's not capped at previous earnings? I'm guessing you would've checked?

Yep, no matter what you earned before, you get minimum $750 per week. There's a few qualifying conditions, such as:

- If the employer has a turnover < $1B, they must have had a reduction in turnover of 30% or more
- The employee must have been working on 1st March 2020, and employed for the 12 months prior
- Some other stuff

My best mate has been struggling on around 350 to 450 for the last 20 years. Not topped up with dole.

He recently got his pay reduced to only 230 a week the week prior to the scheme.

He will only believe it when its in his pay. Not sure if its gross or net.

The money is paid to his employer and the employer has to have seen a reduction of 30 percent in contracts.

It is to be payed on May 1st backdated to April I think.

Jobkeeper gets taxed and you miss out on super. Brings it closer to the dole amount with the corona bonus.

Government are throwing money around like the proverbial drunken sailor.

My business is in for a windfall whether I need or deserve it, but I'm going to take every cent I can get because there's no guarantee of what's going to happen and you can be sure that coming out the other side we're all getting screwed!

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Harrow said..
Yep, no matter what you earned before, you get minimum $750 per week. There's a few qualifying conditions, such as:

- If the employer has a turnover < $1B, they must have had a reduction in turnover of 30% or more
- The employee must have been working on 1st March 2020, and employed for the 12 months prior
- Some other stuff

I've heard of similar scenarios.

I think this could be real life.

$1500/fortnight for each employee - turnover of less than $1 billion and turnover will be reduced by more than 30 per cent relative to a comparable period a year ago (of at least a month)

Any accountant should be able to figure out how to show 30 days in 2020 with 30% less turnover than the same 30 days in 2019.

treasury.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-03/Fact_sheet_Info_for_Employers_0.pdf

Yeah the Govt is arguing with Police in WA about a $1000 per YEAR payrise and won't do anymore. Same with the nurses' last pay dispute.

But will throw 20 times that much at all the people who aren't actually risking themselves every day at work with a virus (or all the other things the emergency services deal with)

I can understand supporting those who lost their jobs, but doubling the money going to some groups just as a gimme, and ignoring the people fighting this crisis, is farrked.

Curious world we live in.....

They also need to think about the increase in alcohol sales (and no doubt drugs too) in at-risk groups and an already overstretched emergency services sector. Recipe for disaster.....

"Don't go for a surf in case you increase load on volunteer rescue and so on" was the message.

But we will triple the money given to people with substance abuse problems and hope for the best in the name of economic stimulus...? Phew, good luck.

www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/coronavirus-covid19-how-australia-is-paying-for-welfare/12133292

many have no options & no income despite paying taxes....


Yesterday's critical workers have been left to fight today's health crisis with no job, no jobkeeper, no income, and no options

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/08/casual-and-migrant-workers-are-at-the-mercy-of-an-economy-that-punishes-its-victims

The employer only has to pay SGC on the wages earned in the fortnight if the employee earns less than the $1500. Ie if the employee earns $1000 for the fortnight and is paid the $1500 (less PAYG) then the employer only has the pay SGC on $1000. At the end of the day, it's a short term stimulus package to keep employees producing and hopefully spending.

Well now we might start taxing foreign companies that seem to be paying no tax in Australia & that might help shift manufacturing back to Australia to help pay for it .

no rational person can justify a casual on 200 $ a week now collecting 700$ , when tax paying casuals living here for many years with families are left to starve , that's plainly wrong.

Bazz, it's all about getting the money out there quickly much the same as the stimulus packages from the Rudd era but even quicker than those packages. There is no time for fancy calculations, it's a case of simple/stupid and get the cash out into the economy. They do it through an employer because that is the best way of guaranteeing people are still employed and businesses are paying taxes. I'm sure there's better and maybe more equitable ways, but they simply don't have the resources to implement anything quickly. As it is, the first JobKeeper payment isn't made until the end of the first week in May so businesses will need to carry employees until then.

Rather than thinking of it as unemployment benefits, think of it as a stimulus payment. The government wants to keep the economy moving, it wants cash being spent in shops, not saved. Who better to do the spending but the recently unemployed or stood down. Don't give it to the employed, retired or well off, they will just save it.

That's exactly right airsail, it's a precisely targeted, short term stimulus package that keeps both employers and employees afloat and gets (devalued) cash into the economy as quickly as possible to Australian citizens for them to spend as they see fit.

except a great % don't qualify , so may well fail in its intention , business need customers to survive ,UBI would create customers /consumers.. business then can survive / grow .

Like previous stimulus packages, Gerry Harvey will be rubbing his hands together. Geez, I should have asked his daughter out when I had the chance.

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bazz61 said..
except a great % don't qualify , so may well fail in its intention , business need customers to survive ,UBI would create customers /consumers.. business then can survive / grow .

Yeah, it's sure hit and miss. Started a casual job 11 months ago, bad luck, 12 months ago...you win.

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Mark _australia said..
Yeah the Govt is arguing with Police in WA about a $1000 per YEAR payrise and won't do anymore. Same with the nurses' last pay dispute.

This went through the other week..."Police will also receive additional $1,000 per annum from July 1, 2020"
www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Pages/McGowan/2020/03/McGowan-Government-give-police-immediate-pay-rise.aspx

That's not right Harrow, and it's something Bazz is struggling to understand. If your employer doesn't qualify for JobKeeper; and you lose your job; and you are an Australian citizen or permanent resident; then you still have access to JobSeeker. This is a stimulus payment aimed squarely at allowing businesses to retain employees by assisting with the business' cash flows and is NOT intended to be a welfare payment for everyone. This payment is not made to the employee, it is made through the business if the combination of the business and the employee are both eligible.

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Paddles B'mere said..
That's not right Harrow, and it's something Bazz is struggling to understand. If your employer doesn't qualify for JobKeeper; and you lose your job; and you are an Australian citizen or permanent resident; then you still have access to JobSeeker. This is a stimulus payment aimed squarely at allowing businesses to retain employees by assisting with the business' cash flows and is NOT intended to be a welfare payment for everyone. This payment is not made to the employee, it is made through the business if the combination of the business and the employee are both eligible.

Sure, guess I'm talking about my kids situation. As full time students in a household with a decent income, they don't qualify for JobSeeker or any other payments, This is a pure lottery win for them, and they didn't even have to buy a ticket.

What you should be doing is laying down the law to them. It's YOUR TAXES that are giving them the money, so it's time for them to pay board, or at least for your boards. Say $200/wk X 3 is $600 X 26 weeks is $15 600. That should keep you equipped for a few years.
Or you could tell them to use it to pay their HECS. Free education, like it used to be

^^^ Conversation already been had. Time for them to understand the value of money and cost of living.

Actually, it went something like this:

Daughter: I don't really need the money, I don't think I'll apply for it. (She'll get it automatically, but didn't realise that.)
Me: That's fine, your choice. By the way, I'm transferring your mobile phone plan into your name tomorrow, and starting next week you're paying $X a week board, and paying for all your own clothes and entertainment. You should have enough savings to cover that for a while.
Daughter: Oh, um. But how will I afford to buy my friends birthday presents?
Me: If you really can't afford it, they'll understand. I'll let you figure it out.

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Harrow said..
Yep, no matter what you earned before, you get minimum $750 per week. There's a few qualifying conditions, such as:

- If the employer has a turnover < $1B, they must have had a reduction in turnover of 30% or more
- The employee must have been working on 1st March 2020, and employed for the 12 months prior
- Some other stuff

On the radio they were saying casuals will be in for some massive payrises and they can't afford to give public servants still working 2%

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Mark _australia said..
Yeah the Govt is arguing with Police in WA about a $1000 per YEAR payrise and won't do anymore. Same with the nurses' last pay dispute.

But will throw 20 times that much at all the people who aren't actually risking themselves every day at work with a virus (or all the other things the emergency services deal with)

I can understand supporting those who lost their jobs, but doubling the money going to some groups just as a gimme, and ignoring the people fighting this crisis, is farrked.

Curious world we live in.....

Nobody likes us - health workers and police until they need us.........

A side effect for a business with many casual employees may be that eligible employees might be rostered on for more hours than usual to take them up to the $1,500 gross for the fortnight; and those employees that are ineligible may get less hours as a result. It may work out ok though if it gives these guys access to the full JobSeeker allowance on top of their now reduced weekly pay as long as they stay under the JobSeeker maximum pay threshhold.

Im feeling a bit shafted .. just sold my businesses so no small business incentive, too much cash in the bank for that rainy day.dont qualify for jobseeker or job keeper. bizarre bit was that my full time employee could in theory get more money now by not going to work

What happens to the retired people that have worked all their lives to have a couple rentals to live off , when the tenants don't have to pay . Who's looking after those people ?

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Imax1 said..
What happens to the retired people that have worked all their lives to have a couple rentals to live off , when the tenants don't have to pay . Who's looking after those people ?

No one, but they won't be alone. I have a rental, and if the tenant suddenly announces that they can't pay the rent, I am screwed... well not immediately, but in 6 months when the interest is due! I suspect that there will be no reduction in rates or land tax either.

There will also be retired people living off other investments that will be doing it tough. I guess the maxim of 'don't put all your eggs in the same basket applies', and we had a good run assuming that house prices never fall and that rents only go up.