Out of tens of thousands of rental listings across Australia, exactly one property is affordable for someone on JobSeeker payments. That's not a typo. One single room in a share house in Adelaide, costing $125 per week. That's it. That's the list.
Anglicare's annual rental affordability snapshot, reported by SBS, surveyed rental listings across the country and measured them against various income levels including JobSeeker, Age Pension, and minimum wage. The results are devastating, but the JobSeeker number stands out for its sheer absurdity.
Mate, let's be clear about what this means. If you lose your job in Australia, you cannot afford to rent anywhere except one specific room in Adelaide. And you better hope no one else gets there first.
JobSeeker payments are currently around $380 per week for a single adult with no children. The standard housing affordability measure says no more than 30% of income should go to rent. That means JobSeeker recipients can theoretically afford $114 per week in rent. In practice, they can afford nothing.
This isn't new information—Anglicare's snapshot has been showing rental unaffordability for years. But the situation has gotten dramatically worse. Even a few years ago, there were at least dozens of affordable options, mostly in regional areas. Now there's one room in Adelaide. The trend line goes in exactly one direction.
The political response has been predictably inadequate. Both major parties acknowledge the problem while refusing to take the measures that might actually solve it: substantially raising JobSeeker payments, massive public housing construction, or serious rental market regulation. Instead we get marginal tweaks and announcements about reviews.
The human cost is obvious. People on JobSeeker are forced to spend 50%, 60%, sometimes 70% of their income on housing, which means not enough money for food, medicine, or other basics. That's not poverty by accident. That's poverty by design.
The economics are straightforward. JobSeeker payments haven't kept pace with rental inflation. Private rental construction targets high-end tenants. Public housing stock has been run down and sold off for decades. Now we have a permanent underclass who literally cannot afford to rent anywhere in the country.
Australia is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. There's no economic reason we can't house everyone. It's a choice. We've chosen not to.
