While you’re here… help us stay here.

Are you enjoying open access to policy and research published by a broad range of organisations? Please donate today so that we can continue to provide this service.

Working paper

Safety net to poverty trap? The twentieth-century origins of Australia’s uneven social security system

Publisher
Welfare recipients Welfare reform Social security Australia
Description

As it stands, our social security system is a relic of the last century. It was designed to complement a group of economic policies that established employment as the foundation of economic security. Since these policies were dismantled, paid work has become more precarious and incomes have become more volatile. The system designed as a safety net has, for too many households, become a poverty trap.

By laying bare the origins of our social security system—the shifting conditions and historical accidents that have shaped it—this paper provides the background for a discussion of the types of reform needed to rebuild a system equipped to respond to the social and economic conditions of this century.

Publication Details
License type:
All Rights Reserved
Access Rights Type:
open