‘Slippery slope’: how Australia’s inadequate welfare traps single parents in a cycle of debt

Australia has some of the lowest welfare payments in the OECD. Advocates say poverty caused by inadequate income-support for parents directly affects the child. Photograph: Igor Alecsander/Getty Images. Posed by models

When Samantha Skinner was made redundant in 2012, she thought she would be able to get another job easily. “I always had,” she says.

This time, however, it took two years of “jumping through Centrelink hoops” before the former public servant and administrator landed a role at Costco.