The Australian government has recently changed the criteria for Centrelink Payments in response to the increasing number of people whose businesses or workplaces have been impacted by forced closures.
How much do you get from Centrelink?
Prior to the Coronavirus supplement payments from Centrelink, payments range from approximately $500 per fortnight to $600 per fortnight. This would vary depending on whether or not you are single or have a partner and whether or not you have dependents.
What are the new Centrelink Payments?
In order to support those that have been adversely and suddenly impacted by the economic downturn, the three main changes the Government has made to Centrelink payments include:
- Introducing a Coronavirus Supplement payment of $750;
- Introducing a Coronavirus Supplement payment of up to $550 per fortnight, and;
- Expanding the criteria, meaning more people to be eligible payments.
What are the new criteria to receive Centrelink Payments?
As well as these additional payments, the change in criteria means you may be eligible for payments if:
- You are a permanent employee who has been sacked or stood down
- You are a sole trader, self employed or contract worker who earns less that $1075 per fortnight due to the economic downturn, or;
- You are caring for someone who has COVID-19
As the news has reported, there are now Centrelink staff working around the clock in Centrelink offices, call centres and in back office operations to manage the spike in queries and applications.
Are there alternatives to Centrelink Payments?
Whilst everyone’s immediate focus is on meeting their current financial commitments – we’ve noticed there are a number of people now looking for ways to supplement or replace their income now that they are either spending more time at home, or working from home more.
This is understandable as according to the ABS, the average weekly income for Australians’ was approximately $1,600 per week at the end of 2019.
Based on the highest Centrelink payments being approximately $600 per fortnight (or $300 per week), which will increase to as much as $1,150 per fortnight (or $575 per week) with the Coronavirus Supplement payment – this is a $1,025 per week reduction in people’s weekly income.
How to build an income working from home
For over 10 years, we have been building and buying websites to make additional revenue whilst working from home. And over that time, we have been sharing and teaching students all over Australia our strategies of how we buy, build and renovate websites to make additional money from home.
Our students have leveraged a range of strategies including building websites to generate passive income, building websites for local businesses as well as buying money making websites and renovating them to increase the revenue and overall value.
As an example, Pete from Adelaide recently used his online skills to build a website portfolio that generated a nice passive side income of $1,000 in 81 days. You can read more about how he bought websites for passive income here.
A lot of these students have now left their jobs and work from home full time to manage their online business. Whilst they started earlier and are in a slightly different position now, the opportunity and need to learn a new digital skill exists now more than ever.
The immediate focus may be to supplement your income or Centrelink payments, but we’ve seen student after student change the course of theirs and their families lives through learning smart digital skills and strategies that help them build real online businesses they can manage whilst working from home.
If you, or someone you know is looking for ways to make money from home and supplement income because their business or job has been impacted by the Coronavirus – register for our free training on how to buy and renovate cash-flow websites.
