Welfare change squeezes sole parents, By Adele Horn, May 5, 2010, Sydney Morning Herald: “Thousands of sole parents are worse off under rules that changed their child support entitlements and forced them to get a job or go on the dole, new research reveals. A typical sole parent with one child aged between six and 12 could be as much as $6700 a year worse off as a result of reforms initiated by the Howard government and introduced from 2006 to 2008. The study, by academics at Murdoch University in Perth, shows only when typical sole parents get a full-time job paying at least $45,000 can they be better off with the new arrangements. But this is unlikely for most as their youngest child is only seven or eight when they have to move off the Parenting Payment and into the workforce…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty