unemployment affect

• High levels of unemployment affect households on an individual level. When people are unemployed and don't have access to steady income, their expenditure on expensive goods and services or leisurely items will fall as they have less financial leeway. This can lead to financial stress, which will negatively impact one's personal relationships with others, and cause an overall decline in their living standards, both material and non-material.
• The community is negatively impacted when there are high rates of unemployment. When households can't afford to buy more goods and services due to less money flowing through the community, expenditure falls, causing business closures - particularly local businesses - and further contributing to job losses. This creates more distress amongst the community, leading to rising crime rates, vandalism especially, as a result of the negative atmosphere and the excessive free time because people are no longer working.
• evidence for community

  For example, in the city of Melbourne, graffiti removal requests increased by 55% in 2020 during Covid, compared to 2019.
• evidence for individuals

  The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that during Covid when unemployment rates were rising in June 2020, one in five Australians (20%) experienced high levels of psychological distress, compared to the one in eight (13%) pre-Covid, reinforcing the impacts on individual mental health when one is unemployed
• High levels of unemployment can be felt on an economic level. The government will have less taxation revenue earnt from income tax, and simultaneously will be spending more on welfare benefits and job creation, leading to a budget deficit, as the revenue from taxation is not enough to cover the expenses from Government spending.
• Economic continued

  In addition, declining business and consumer confidence mean that companies are less likely to expand and generate jobs, and will decrease production causing general living standards to fall, as well as furthering unequal distribution, and widening the gap between the rich and the poor. As a result of Covid, the government recorded an underlying cash deficit of $134.2 billion in 2020-2021 compared to $85.3 billion 2019-2020 pre-covid.