For grey nomads looking to top up their cash flow as they travel, the Federal Budget has brought some good news.
The Treasurer has formalised a Work Bonus initiative developed at the recent Jobs and Skills Summit … and it’s incentivising older Australians who want to work to do a bit more to earn a bit more.
The scheme allows those eligible to keep more of any income they earn through employment. Designed as an incentive to keep pensioners in the workforce, more of people’s income will not count towards Centrelink’s income test.
The temporary income bank credit will increase the amount pensioners can earn this financial year from $7800 to $11,800 before their pension is reduced.
The 'shall-I-work-or-not' sums might start to add up for more grey nomads after the budget. PIC: Pexels
It means that eligible grey nomads who want to work, or want to work more hours, will be able to do more so before their benefits are impacted.
It is hoped that if more mature-aged people work a little more it will help ease some of the labour shortages, particularly in rural areas.
The Government says you can get the Work Bonus if all of these apply to you. You:
It says you don’t need to apply for the Work Bonus as it will apply the Work Bonus to your income if you meet all the eligibility requirements. All you need to do is declare your income.
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Yeah NAH,
Nowhere near enough dollars to generate significant interest in working. I am a licensed H.C. driver and would earn the weekly rate in just one day.
all well an good but then you have to pay tax probly at a hige rate is it really worth it
Given that the last Labour gov put up the retirement age to 67, great for white collar workers but a nightmare for us Tradies with worn out bodies.. me included .
I can’t help but feel this is a sneaky way of testing the waters to increase the pension age eligibility to 70 which some politicians want .
So an extra $4000 (gross) at $50/hr is 80 hrs of work. If you were to put in 4hrs a day, that’s an extra 20 days over a year, or ~5.5% of the year – do your own sums, but no thanks.
What they need to do in our opinion is let the pensioners earn what they want and tax accordingly, is a win win, people who want to go back to work can, increase in income tax to Govt, employers getting knowledgeable people to employ.
As a 72 year old Grey Nomad I took some regional work on whilst travelling. At the time the employers could not get anyone at all to do this job. In taking this job, to help the local community, I penalised myself with a loss to my pension. There is a huge problem in regions obtaining workers. The government has not gone anywhere near enough to resolve this issue. Any earning by a pensioner within regional australia should have no affect on their pension. The worker shortage is in regional Australia. This is easily resolved by the government making the right decision. Any earnings in regional Australia by a pensioner has no affect on their pension.
I am almost 75 and taken a job near Broome as a cattle station cook this will be my 4th year and I loose the pension but would rather that as I’m getting around our big country and not sitting home growing old