Normally, I’m used to walking head down through the local shopping centre. Window shopping when you have just enough to pay the bills and feed yourself is disheartening to say the least. You begin to recognise others in the same boat by their clothes, their hair, their demeanour, even their walk.
The government temporarily lifting the rate of jobseeker, or what we used to call Newstart, from $40 a day to $80 a day in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, changed that. And it did so unexpectedly. On my first day of supplement I remember glancing up at the barbershop and sighing to myself, thinking as I always did that I couldn’t really afford it. But then something clicked, and I realised I could for the first time in months get a trim and look nice and neat. I’m not sure I recognised who looked back at me in the barber’s mirror.
If you’ve never lived on jobseeker without a support network, it’s hard to understand and empathise with the concept that a $15 thing might seem so expensive that it can only be afforded maybe twice a year. What is probably harder to empathise with is that feeling of worthlessness that pervades you when every decision you make is around making sure you have enough to put food on the table. It seems silly that a haircut could change that, but it did.
I felt like a weight had been lifted, and it wasn’t from the serious amount of hair on the floor of the shop. It allowed me to understand that, for at least the next few months, I wouldn’t have to be quite so frugal. I could stop with the Mi goreng, the jar sauce, the packet pasta mix. I could buy fresh fruit and vegetables, I could leave the house. I could afford to leave the house. Even though the world was trapped inside dealing with the virus, for me I’d never felt freer.
Before the supplement, medical appointments were a worry. Sometimes I would end up with scripts not covered by the PBS, and then it was a decision on if I wanted to eat this week or have medication I clearly needed. Dentists were the same. Often I would have to stagger the appointments out so I could get the X-rays done one day, and treatment months later. Brushing your teeth doesn’t really matter when you’re eating so poorly.
Photograph: Martin Berry/Alamy Stock Photo
Having to decide if I can afford to run the heating for an hour or two to take the chill off the air. Being able to afford the lowest in rent means the houses aren’t that well made, so life was usually spent bundled under decade-old blankets in winter, miserable and exhausted both mentally and physically.
With the extra, I was able to go to Kmart, and instead of buying yet another pair of $7 grey tracksuit pants with a drawstring that only lasts a single year (you know the ones), I could buy some clothes that led to people telling me I looked nice. That made me feel like a fraud.
I’m also saving for a car. It’s an expense I know I won’t be able to afford if the rate gets returned to its former level, but so many jobs require one and I’ve simply never been able to afford it before now.
Now I’m eating better. I’m more active. I’m more social. I’m able to lose weight and be healthier. I’m no longer living in the shadow of a fortnight with bills that make me sick to my stomach. I’m not paying little tiny fortnight instalments on rising power bills that just seem to keep rising no matter how frugal I am with electricity. I can afford credit, and actually call businesses. I’m more … me?
Being on jobseeker with the supplement feels like freedom. Traditionally, it’s oppression. It’s not the kind of oppression that involves being locked in a cage and starved, nor is it the oppression of constantly being frightened for your life. But it’s an insidious oppression … the kind where each day melds into one another, the kind where it’s hard to recall exactly what day it is, the kind where you worry every fortnight if you’ll be able to make the food money stretch, and by the end of it, you’re too bloody exhausted to ever stand a chance to change your circumstances.
And in September, if I go back to living on $40 a day, that’s where people like me will end up again. But for a while it was nice to see what living was actually all about.
