Number of Australians on the dole for more than five years doubles, costing taxpayers $32 billion

“We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many people are added.” Ronald Reagan

Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, was right when he said, “Our goal should never be to make poverty less miserable. Our goal must be to make poverty more escapable.” Brooks went on to point out, “getting things without working for them is a very hard habit to break. Getting things without working for them can become a way of life.”

Australia, like many other nations, continues to prove this to be the case, as the number of people who have been on the dole for more than five years has doubled in recent years. Only half a decade ago there were 62,853 long term working-age welfare recipients. Now, there are 116,682 and last year they cost Australian taxpayers $31.8 billion.

In an interview on Channel 7’s Sunrise, Ron Wilson rightly states:

Welfare should be a safety net… It should not be a lifestyle choice. But when people move into this lifestyle choice of welfare… when you look at all the add-ons, on top of the actual dole payment, you get free transport, you get parental support, you get rental allowances, you can even get a free house on the tax payer, it’s pretty hard to match that in the workplace… We’ve got to get away from this idea that welfare is a lifestyle choice. It’s not. It’s only a safety net.

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