Abolishing The Dole In Australia
Abolishing the dole would certainly only have bad effects on Australia's current economy and would definitely cause a dramatic drop in Australia's standard of living. The only appropriate way to lower Australia's unemployment level successfully is to pressure labor productivity to increase and to push for a decrease in wage prices (Batch, 1999, p234).
Unemployment rates in Australia in the 1950's to the 1960's and even the early 1970's, remained at a steady one to two percent (Howard, 1992,Unemployment In Australia). With Australia's current economic position, and most other countries economic positions, Australia's unemployment rate, will, most probably never fall to these levels again. Such factors affecting this, is Australia's ageing population, and societies out look on employment.
For a person to be classified as unemployed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), they have to meet certain criteria put in place. The ABS requires persons classified as unemployed to be over fifteen years old, and to be either eligible for employment, looking for employment, or waiting to start some form of employment. To be classified as employed a person only has to work over a minimum of one hour per week, whether it is paid work or not (fisher, 1993,p92). As of April 2003, the ABS reports Australia's unemployment rate to be at 6.1%. This figure represents around 619,000 people unemployed in Australia as of April 2003(www.abs.gov.au). These figures demonstrate that if the dole was to be removed and no other form of assistance was to be offered, these 619,000 people would be living in poverty, and would create a third world sector, where crime and begging would become a way of life, thus dropping Australia's standard of living.
At present the dole acts as an economic stabilizer in Australia, therefore if the dole were to be removed, it would have critical effects on Australia's economic objectives. Investments would suffer,...
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