Aged Pension - Welfare or Entitlement?, page-315

The reason the payments are different is that about twenty five years ago the then government introduced different payments for the unemployed and pensioners. Before that they were the same.

The pension has increased with the full cost of living while some other payments have not and remain almost where they were over twenty years ago.

There is no particular logical reason for this discrepancy, it's just politicians playing games with payments.

Dave R.