Notes on the data: Income support

People receiving an unemployment benefit, June 2023

Policy context: Those people who do not have access to secure and satisfying work are less likely to have an adequate income; and unemployment and underemployment are generally associated with reduced life opportunities and poorer health and wellbeing. Although the relationship between unemployment and health and wellbeing is complex and varies for different population groups, there is consistent evidence from research that unemployment is associated with adverse health outcomes; and unemployment has a direct effect on physical and mental health over and above the effects of socioeconomic status, poverty, risk factors, or prior ill-health [1,2,3].

Unemployment and its accompanying health effects are not distributed evenly through the population. Unemployment rates in Australia are highest among people aged less than 25 years, and are generally higher in rural and remote areas than in urban areas.

The data shown here are the sum of the JobSeeker Payment and Youth Allowance (other).

References

Mathers CD, Schofield DJ. The health consequences of unemployment: the evidence. Med J Aust. 1998;168(4):178-82.
Dollard MF, Winefield AH. Mental health: overemployment, underemployment, unemployment and healthy jobs. Aust e-J Adv Mental Hlth. 2002;1(3).
World Health Organization (WHO). Promoting mental health: concepts, emerging evidence, practice. Geneva: WHO; 2005.

Notes:

People receiving an ‘unemployment benefit' - which includes the JobSeeker Payment or Youth Allowance (other)1 paid by the Department of Human Services (Centrelink) - are shown as a proportion of the eligible population (of persons aged 16 to 21 years for the Youth Allowance (other), 22 to 64 years for the JobSeeker Payment).

For total unemployment, this is the sum of Youth Allowance (other) and JobSeeker Payment, as a proportion of the population aged 15 to 64 years.

A very small number of Local Government Areas (LGAs) have proportions in excess of 100%: these are clearly not accurate. The reason for this is not clear, although it may be the result of the address of the beneficiary not being allocated to the correct small geographical area by the correspondence files available; it may also reflect inaccuracies in the denominator (the population), as population estimates at the small area level for age groups can be unreliable, in particular for areas with proportionately high numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (as is the case for this income support payment). It also indicates that it is possible that percentages of less than 100% may also be overstated.

Population Health Area (PHA) data were derived from publicly-available data that were already suppressed at the Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2). Therefore, if a PHA included an SA2 with suppressed data, there could be an undercount in the PHA. However, the loss of counts due to the use of this data set was negligible (less than 0.01% lost). As State and Territory totals were also provided, data in the ‘Unknown’ data row in the Excel data workbooks are calculated as the difference between the sum of the PHA data and the State/Territory totals; these figures therefore include the sum of the suppressed SA2 cells.

Data cells with counts of less than five were suppressed (confidentialised).

¹ JobSeeker Payment replaced Newstart allowance from 20 March 2020.

² Youth Allowance (other) is largely comprised of unemployed people aged 16 to 21 looking for full-time work or undertaking approved activities, such as part-time study or training. It excludes Youth Allowance customers who are full-time students or undertaking an apprenticeship/ traineeship.

Geography: Data available by Population Health Area, Local Government Area, Primary Health Network, Quintile of socioeconomic disadvantage of area and Quintiles within PHNs, and Remoteness Area

Numerator: People in receipt of the JobSeeker Payment or Youth Allowance (other) from the Department of Human Services (Centrelink)

Denominator: People aged 16 to 64 years at 30 June 2022 (population data at June 2023 not available at time of publication)

Detail of analysis: Per cent

Source: Compiled by PHIDU based on data from DSS Payment Demographic Data, June 2023, available from https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/dss-payment-demographic-data, accessed 20 December 2023 for PHAs and data supplied by the Department of Social Services, June 2023 for LGAs; and Australian Bureau of Statistics Estimated Resident Population, 30 June 2022.