Making work pay – and making income support work

This seminar will present the findings of the Brotherhood’s Making Work Pay study to be released at the end of March. With the Henry Tax Review in mind, this research began with the modest aim of documenting ways in which the tax and transfer system has created barriers against labour market entry for some unemployed people and sole parents through the operation of effective marginal tax rates (EMTRs).  What we found, however, through in-depth interviews with forty-four such people, was a far more complex and sometimes chaotic pattern of incentives and disincentives which fail to serve the best interests of these citizens.  This study reveals that our income support system has failed to adapt to this new economic environment and to equip the most disadvantaged citizens to manage the manifold risks they face when engaging with insecure forms of paid work. This seminar will conclude with a call for a wide ranging overhaul of our income support, housing and employment services, and make recommendations for the creation of a system that can indeed make the transition to work pay for some of the most disadvantaged members of our community.

Eve Bodsworth is a Research Officer, Brotherhood of St Laurence who conducted the Making Work Pay study. She is also currently completing PhD research looking at the experiences of single mothers affected by the welfare-to-work policy introduced in 2006, part of a broader project funded by an Australian Research Council linkage grant between the Brotherhood of St Laurence and Deakin University. Eve previously worked as a community lawyer practicing in the areas of family law and family violence law.  She holds a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) and Bachelor of Arts (Hons) from the University of Melbourne.