Trends

• the stage 3 tax cuts were amended by Albanese Government from the original stage 3 tax cuts
• The government spent $291B in total during the COVID reccesion
• estimated that job keeper saved 700,000 jobs
• $89B was spent on job keeper
• unemployment decreased from 7.4% to 3.5% after COVID
• The 2020 COVID recession saw GDP fall a record of -7% in July of 2020
• Unemployment increased to 5.2% in Feb 2020 to a peak of 7.4% in July 2020
• 600,000 people lost their jobs in april 2020
• in response to the recession, the government adopted a highly expansionary stance
• The stimulus included:

  • Job keeper
  • Transfer Payments
  • Business support
• the jobkeeper scheme was designed to keep workers employed during the pandemic by paying employers $1500 per week for every employee they kept on.
• JobKeeper supported over 3.8million individuals and over 1 million businesses (mostly SMEs)
• The jobkeeper payment was $1,500 per fortnight per employee
• The government boosted cash flow for businesses with $35b in cash flow support so they could keep operating, pay their rent, electricity and other bills and retain staff
• Coronavirus supplemnt ($20b) boosted the incomes of job seekers from usual $550 to $1120 per fortnight
• coronavirus supplement supported over 3m Australians with additional income