Youth Allowance - Everyone Read (2 Viewers)

[s2ophie]

I'm confused is the living away from home allowance the same as youth allowance and if not how do you become eligible for the living away from home allowance?

 

[Ribbon]

Originally posted by Lexicographer
If you are suspected of defrauding the government they can audit you, or request the ATO do so. Centrelink is backed up by some powerful legislation, since they do get plenty of bogans trying to claim more than they are entitled to.

I'm not saying they can't or won't check people out (actually I know a funny storey where a guy was living with his g/f and thier baby, but told centrelink he was still living with his mum so he didn't loose any money... someone dobbed them in, they investigated, and he ended up getting paid more, because he was living away from home with a dependant child... lol) its just that its not as easy as them randomly choosing someone and looking at thier ato, bank and other personal info. I was just saying that it was a very strong reaction to my suggestion that you could get the odd $20 from your parents and get away with it. It would be a waste of taxpayers money for centrelink to investigate someone cos thier mum gave them $20 for lunch, or some milk or something when they were a bit short...

and sophie: there is 'youth allowence' which is about $160 max a fortnight for people living with parents on low incomes, and there is 'youth allowence - living away from home rate' which is a max of around $310 a fortnight (exclusive of other benifits like rent assistance). So when people say 'living away from home allowence' they mean youth allowence, at the living away from home rate.

 

[Chris462]

i rang up centrelink today and they told me that since my parents combined income is over 62k a year, that i am not eligible for youth allowance or living away from home allowance. the only way around it is to say that your family had some sort of breakup and you are living with someone else...

another way is to get disowned from your family but thats a little drastic in my opinion, so yeah no money for me...

 

[Mambomeg]

my youth allowance got taken away from me because my mum earned $2000 over the limit one year, meaning i lost almost $6000 a year in youth allowance. the system is screwed, and they made so many mistakes all the time. I got it for two years and had to fill out fortnightly forms, but sometimes they would just randomly not pay me, and then like a week later i'd get a thing saying "your youth allowance has been cancelled" no explanation or anything, and i'd have to sit on the phone for hours sorting it out, ususally it'd just be that they claimed that hadnt recieved my form, which was usually bullshit. They didnt even give me any warning when they stopped payments, i'd just not have the money in my account.
The system is fully fully screwed and unless u desparately need the money, i wouldnt bother, and if u do desparately need the money, then good luck to u coz half the time u wont even recieve it, so dont rely on it.

 

[White Rabbit]

Ring Centrelink. They can answer all your questions, really. Or just go to your local Centrelink office - but go before 9am or after 3pm otherwise you'll be there for hours.

At the end of the day, the only way most of us get Youth Allowance is if your parents income doesn't go over the threshold. Which is really low.

And Nastar? Work, I guess. No offence, and not meaning to sound bitchy, but you really should have planned it before you applied for Uni 300kms away, same goes for anyone moving away from home. Ya really shouldn't rely on centrelink unless you know 100% for sure you'll get enough - and $320 a fornight (which is the highest anyone going to Uni can get) isn't really something you can live on.

You may think the system isn't fair, and you're prolly right. But at the end of the day, there are a hell of alot more people who need support heaps more than anyone on this board.

 

[Ribbon]

Natstar I was saying you CAN get benifits based on the fact that it is unreasonable for you to live at home, because you have to study so far away.

If that fails, however, you cannot claim to be independant based on what you earned because you havnm't been out of school for long enough.

and I agree with mamboeng... centrelink is so full of stuffups, and you constantly have your pay changed or cancelled for no reason. It is stupid how they cut you off completely when your parents start to earn more, because you end up worse off! That happened to me... my boyfriend went from $12k trainee wage to 40k fully paid, so they cut me off completely... I think
a/ this is a different situation to parents because you can't expect your boyfriend to support you like your parents would and
b/ our combined income went down, because he pays so much tax, and centrelinke won't give me any money

oh and don't always expect the right advice from people working at centrelink My fav storey would be when a <pregnant> friend walked in to find out about parenting payments. The worker (poor english speaking) asked her how old she was and when she said 16 said : 'oh disgust!' and told her she wasn't eligable for payments, when she very clearly was and shes on them now I've gotten heaps of conflicting info from different people too...

 

[MiuMiu]

You can't just say "right, Im leaving home to go to uni" and expect the government to fill in the blanks, it doesn't work like that. Unfortunately, if you can't afford it, you can't do it. The government don't pay for people to leave home and go to uni, to do so would be way too expensive. People in rural areas aren't even getting proper medical facilities.......supporting people whilst they move away to uni just isn't a priority. It sucks, but unfortunately its not a perfect world and its just the way things are.

 

[sweetcherry]

I have disability support pension (some dickhead told centrelink that deafness is a fucking disability!) which gets more than YA.

I get like $420 fortnightly

 

[Ribbon]

Originally posted by Ms 12
You can't just say "right, Im leaving home to go to uni" and expect the government to fill in the blanks, it doesn't work like that. Unfortunately, if you can't afford it, you can't do it. The government don't pay for people to leave home and go to uni, to do so would be way too expensive. People in rural areas aren't even getting proper medical facilities.......supporting people whilst they move away to uni just isn't a priority. It sucks, but unfortunately its not a perfect world and its just the way things are.

<not trying to turn this into a political debate but...> people in rural areas are not getting enough funds for essential services... but we can always afford to go to war

Do retards count as disabled? Maybe howard should be moved to the disability support pension