In news which really shouldn’t come as a surprise, a poll shows young people overwhelmingly want the JobKeeper and boosted JobSeeker payments to stick around past September.
Citing the results of an Australian National University poll, The Guardian reports a whopping 70.5% of respondents aged 18-24, and 60.1% of folks aged 25-34, think keeping the payments past September will help the nation claw itself out of a coronavirus-shaped hole in the economy.
Broadly speaking, the figures correlate with the industries hardest-hit by the pandemic, many of which are stacked with young Aussies.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics found jobs in the accomodation and food services industries dropped by 25.6% between March and April. Jobs in the arts and recreation industries also took a severe hit, thanks to the lockdowns and their associated impacts.
The survey, which tabulated the opinions of some 3,200 Aussies in May, found 57.6% of all respondents thought keeping those payments going would benefit the economy.
Despite calls to keep those payments chugging along, the Federal Government has signalled that the JobKeeper payment, designed to keep employees at hard-hit businesses on the payroll, may contract in the coming months.
That’s despite the Government’s $60 billion underspend, too.
You can peep the full Guardian write-up here.
