Australia Yearbook - 2001

Chapter 7—Income and welfare 257
7.6 AGE PENSIONERS(a)
Unit June 1997 June 1998 June 1999 June 2000
Age group (years)
60–64 no. 208 309 187 256 189 410 169 240
65–69 no. 481 624 479 884 478 856 477 118
70–74 no. 364 766 388 474 414 302 436 900
75 and over no. 625 515 627 003 633 224 646 602
Males no. 597 859 613 587 634 112 654 557
Females no. 1 082 355 1 069 030 1 081 680 1 075 303
Persons no. 1 680 214 1 682 617 1 715 792 1 729 860
Wife pensioners (age) no. 36 577 36 233 32 196 31 406
Total payments in financial year ending 30 June(b) $’000 13 204 658 13 396 647 13 812 488 14 394 469
(a) Expenditure for 1998–99 onwards is reported on an accrual basis and is not directly comparable to expenditure in previous
years. (b) Includes allowances, Rent Assistance, and Wife Pension (age), and Age Pensioners paid by the Department of Veterans’
Affairs where applicable.
Source: Department of Family and Community Services.
Payments for people with a
disability and the sick
Disability Support Pension (DSP)
The DSP is the main form of income support
available to people with disabilities. It is paid to a
person aged 16 years or over who has a physical,
intellectual or psychiatric impairment and who is
assessed as being unable to do any work for at
least 30 hours a week at full award wages, or to be
retrained for any work, for at least two years.
Table 7.7 shows the number of recipients of DSP
at June for the years 1997 to 2000.
The DSP for people aged 21 years and over is
paid at the same rate as the Age Pension and is
subject to the same income and assets tests,
except for permanently blind recipients, who are
not subject to either the income or assets test.
Youth rates apply to those aged under 21 years.
These are largely tied to Youth Allowance rates,
but include a supplement of $79.50 per fortnight.
Youth rates are not subject to parental income or
assets tests. A Pharmaceutical Allowance of $5.60
per fortnight (single or couple combined) is also
paid to people receiving DSP.
Disability Support pensioners and other people
with disabilities can gain access to rehabilitation,
training, labour market programs or labour force
re-entry assistance. Job seekers are assessed by
Centrelink to determine if they are eligible for
Commonwealth employment assistance from
either a disability employment service or
Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service (CRS)
Australia or through the Job Network. The
streaming tool used by Centrelink is the Work
Ability Tables (WATs). Since May 1998, eligible job
seekers with a WATs score of less than 50 are
referred to Job Network members funded by
Department of Employment Workplace Relations
and Small Business (DEWRSB). Job seekers with a
WATs score of 50 or more are referred to specialist
disability employment services funded by FaCS.
7.7 DISABILITY SUPPORT PENSIONERS(a)
Unit June 1997 June 1998 June 1999 June 2000
Age group (years)
16–19 no. 12 313 13 178 14 126 15 025
20–39 no. 119 990 124 712 129 600 133 509
40–59 no. 298 530 311 398 326 987 339 283
60 and over no. 96 681 104 048 106 969 114 576
Males no. 352 607 361 539 373 340 382 412
Females no. 174 907 191 797 204 342 219 981
Persons no. 527 514 553 336 577 682 602 393
Wife pensioners (DSP) no. 91 307 79 892 68 523 59 935
Total payments for financial year ending 30 June(b) $’000 5 299 148 5 198 588 5 454 292 5 732 446
(a) Expenditure for 1998–99 onwards is reported on an accrual basis and is not directly comparable to expenditure in previous
years. (b) Includes Disability Support Pension and Wife Pension (DSP) where applicable.
Source: Department of Family and Community Services.