Day-to-day insecurity of low-income regional households and labour markets

Designing policies to assist transitioning regional economies requires more than clearly identifying what social and economic disruptions are occurring. Policy aims can be derailed unless there is an equally sharp understanding how competitive disruptions impact daily life. • Economic insecurity increasingly disrupts household life. Escalating living costs, precarious employment, low and erratic wages, inadequate and increasingly conditional welfare payments intimately interlink to intensify household insecurity. • Living at the stressful interface of work, social security and family responsibilities heightens the risks to wellbeing. • Social security payments play a key role in sustaining working populations in labour markets in ways that benefit both regional households and employers. • The social and economic interactions of a community are best analysed at the SA2 level. • For local socio-economic relations to be sustainably enhanced, it is vital for national, state and regional employment policy planners to identify specific locations of intense income support payment receipt and precarious jobs. • Further statistical and qualitative research is crucial to investigate how lowand moderate-income regional households experience and navigate the risks of ‘making do’ each fortnight.