Table 19: Period of Interruption to Centrelink Payments
Proportion
No.
2014
2010
< 5 days
0
0%
16.7%
5-9 days
5
7.0%
16.7%
10-19 days
10
14.1%
22.2%
20-39 days
10
14.1%
27.8%
40+ days
46
64.8%
16.7%
Almost three-quarters of these respondents (73.4%) indicated that the interruption/reduction meant they were unable to meet
their household’s basic needs.
Financial Hardship
Several new questions were introduced to the 2014 ER survey to get a more detailed picture of the financial hardship experienced
by clients. Survey respondents were asked to identify what costs had caused them recent financial hardship from a list of predefined items. Respondents could select more than one item. The most commonly identified costs causing financial hardship,
identified by more than half of all respondents, were food expenses (68%), electricity (63.2%), housing costs and gas (54.2%).
Table 20: Costs causing financial hardship for households
No.
%
Food expenses
172
68.0%
Electricity
160
63.2%
Housing costs (e.g. rent, board, mortgage)
142
56.1%
Gas
137
54.2%
Travel (fares, petrol, car insurance, registration, etc.)
114
45.1%
Phone
96
37.9%
Health / Medical expenses (e.g. medicine)
96
37.9%
Water
60
35.6%
Debt repayment (e.g. parking fines, Centrelink, credit
card, etc.)
85
33.6%
School expenses (e.g. fees, books, uniform etc.)
77
30.4%
Internet
55
21.7%
Pet care
31
12.3%
Baby expenses (e.g. formula, nappies etc.)
30
11.9%
32