‘It is expensive to be poor’: 28-year-old Aussie’s pension experiment reveals grim reality


News.com.au
December 23, 2025

A Melbourne woman who tried living on the amount of money she would get weekly if she were on the age pension has found it unlivable and bad for her health.   :(

Zoe Heacock was shocked when she read that Aussies living in capital cities on the current age or disability pension only have $8 left a day after paying rent.

The $8 figure came from a report by Everybody’s Home, a housing affordability campaign that claims once you factor in the average rent in capital cities in Australia, that is what people on the Age Pension and Disability Support Pension would be left with after covering rent.

Ms Heacock told news.com.au she couldn’t get that $8 figure out of her head because it was so confronting.

“I thought it was an absolutely crazy number,” she said.

Ms Heacock told news.com.au she couldn’t get that $8 figure out of her head.
She said being left with $8 a day to live on is just ‘crazy’. 
The most a single person on the age person can get in a fortnight from government payments is $1178.70, less than $600 a week.

This is the same amount single people get on the disability support pension. It works out to be just over $80 a day.

Ms Heacock was so struck by the report she decided to try living on $8 day as part of Aussie athlete Nedd Brockman’s 2025 Uncomfortable Challenge.

It encourages people to raise money to address homelessness in Australia by pledging to do something that makes them feel uncomfortable for 10 days.


Ms Heacock said that the $8 figure really stood out to her because she thought immediately, “I don’t think I could do it”, but she wanted to try.

She believes the small amount shows the “misalignment between the welfare system and the housing crisis” and argued that payments aren’t keeping up with inflated living costs.   :(

“Welfare payments haven’t increased at the same rate as rents have,” she said.

A departmental spokesperson for the Department of Social Services told news.com.au that increased social security payments are one of the ways the government is supporting Australians amid the cost of living crisis.

“The Australian Government is supporting people with disability and older Australians with cost of living in a number of ways across government, including increased social security payments,” the spokesperson said.

“Since 2022, the full single rate of Age Pension and Disability Support Pension have increased by almost $5000 a year and the maximum rate of Commonwealth Rent Assistance has increased by almost 50 per cent.”

The Age Pension rates are also indexed twice a year in a bid to reflect the changes in the cost of living for pensioners.

The 28-year-old argued that welfare payments haven’t kept up with the rising costs of rents.   :(

She tried living-off just $8 a day after paying rent for 10 days.
‘Expensive to be poor’

Very quickly after Ms Heacock began her experiment, she realised that living on just $8 was going to be more than difficult.

“One thing that really shocked me was that I was going to work every day in the city and on public transport, and the trams were $5.50 one-way, and that is standard,” she said.

“$11 a day on public transport, if I were just paying for public transport, that meant I’d be over my budget.”

In Victoria, concession holders get 50 per cent off their fares, so someone on the pension would likely be paying half of that $11 figure.

Even if they only spent $5.50 a day on transport, that is more than half of their $8 budget.   :(

Ms Heacock was taking her 10-day experiment seriously, so to save money she started getting the tram to work and not tapping on to avoid the fees.

“I started fare evading and, on the second day, a tram inspector picked me up, and I just said ‘sorry I forgot to tap on’, and then they got me to top-up my card in front of them, and I topped up to $20,” she said.

That $20 avoided her getting a fine, but she pointed out that someone on Centrelink might not have the means to be able to just put $20 towards public transport and then got fined.

“You just think about all the additional expenses that poor people face because they’re trying to avoid expenses,” she said.

Are all the things in my life behind a paywall?’

The $8 budget meant she could only afford to eat two meals a day, and she lived off 2-minute noodles and batched-cook pasta, and the carb-heavy diet wasn’t ideal.   :(

“I have quite a sensitive stomach as it is and I was feeling the ramifications for weeks after it ended,” she said.

“I was feeling awful, I had no energy, I wasn’t eating any meat or fresh fruit or vegetables, everything was just designed to fill me up and stop me from feeling hungry.”

Ms Heacock said that living on $8 made her aware of her privilege in a way she had never been before.

For instance, her local coffee shop, which knew she was doing the challenge, wanted to help out and, as a birthday gift, gave her some free coffee.

Ms Heacock said the gesture touched her, but it also made her realise that community is far easier to obtain if you’re not poor.

“It made me think I was able to get all these benefits because I’m part of a community, and I was reflecting on how to get into these communities and (often) you’ve paid to be part of them,” she said.

Ms Heacock said that living on $8 made her aware of her privilege in a way she had never been before.

When Ms Heacock was living on $8 a day, she couldn’t afford hobbies; all she could afford was to go to work and come home. Everything else was out of her budget.

Not being able to afford simple hobbies made her realise how financially comfortable she had always been and how isolating poverty can be.

“It is all the stuff we take for granted,” she said.

“Like going to pilates class or getting coffee with friends. These are expenses that people on low incomes can’t afford, and you start thinking, ‘Are all the things in my life behind a paywall?’”

“That was a big perspective gainer for me.”


The 10-day experiment made her realise that, in her opinion, the pension is far too low and should be higher.

“I know a lot of people have an aversion to raising welfare payments, but I would just love to see welfare payments more in line with the cost of living,” she said.

“Being on Centrelink is still living in poverty.”   :(

Looks like its time for a good increase to the aged pension.   :(

Solution:

https://publicmoneypublicgood.net/

Note: public money, not taxpayer money.

As long as governments are forced to tax or borrow from the private sector, low income groups will aways be condemned to poverty.

whiteknight wrote on Dec 26^th, 2025 at 9:57am:

Looks like its time for a good increase to the aged pension.   :(

And how will the government pay for it?

Hence:

https://publicmoneypublicgood.net/

Note: public money not taxpayer money.

Well - the government is going to put pressure on the resource leeches to bring them to the point of saying 'it's just not profitable any more' - so they will bail out, and the State will then resume extraction and sale of its own resources, and will guarantee its own people first and foremost, ensuring reasonable prices. 

I mentioned this in regard to natural gas... citing at the time that the 'super funds' should take over running such things - but I was slightly off my game - what I meant was that THE National Super Fund would take over running those things so as to guarantee a national Future Fund for all - also drawing back in the Stolen Generation (2006-2026) of Howard's theft of $232Bn for HIS personal super fund in a tax haven, which has now streteched out to $335Bn - a nice little sum to set to rights some of the economic problems these same packs of fools have forced on us.

Anyway - a proper restructrue of control over public utilities and such will create more than sufficient funds for running and developing the nation anew... and politicians in power in the house (which is all they really have in terms of power) will NOT have access to that funding, and will have to apply for funding and lay it all out.  They will stil have limited tax revenue to supply the basics.... but all their fancy wt dreams will have to find funding apart from the notorious 'consolidated revenue' into which they dip endlessly to make up the shortfalls in their 'calculations' over infrastrucure projects etc.

On the title subject - of course it is expensive to be poor - you cannot negotiate a better deal with banks; you re obliged to buy everything at whatever value the market puts on it; you have a far higher percentage outlay on pure survival and far less discretionary funds available;  you do not have the wherewithal to 'invest' and cunning rep unearned rewards; you don't have the 'inside running' or 'connections' to get the best spots (think back on that Future Fund and how it permits such lavish retirement lifestyling for the Chosen Ones - all guaranteed even if they bring the whole Australian society down to rubble as they are working so assiduously to achieve); in many cases you don't even  have the clothing or the 'front' to win yourself a potentially good future in a job.

Sir Grappler Truth Teller OAM wrote on Dec 26^th, 2025 at 12:50pm:

Well - the government is going to put pressure on the resource leeches to bring them to the point of saying 'it's just not profitable any more' - so they will bail out, and the State will then resume extraction and sale of its own resources, and will guarantee its own people first and foremost, ensuring reasonable prices.

Your error: mainstream economics creates the "resource leeches" you drone on about - a currency-issuing government should always ensure full employment by acting as employer of last resort.

There is no need of unemployment and its associated poverty.


Quote:

I mentioned this in regard to natural gas... citing at the time that the 'super funds' should take over running such things - but I was slightly off my game - what I meant was that THE National Super Fund would take over running those things so as to guarantee a national Future Fund for all - also drawing back in the Stolen Generation (2006-2026) of Howard's theft of $232Bn for HIS personal super fund in a tax haven, which has now streteched out to $335Bn - a nice little sum to set to rights some of the economic problems these same packs of fools have forced on us.

You are confused, hence conflating "resource leeches" (the involuntarily unemployed) with super fund managers...


Quote:

On the title subject - of course it is expensive to be poor - you cannot negotiate a better deal with banks; you re obliged to buy everything at whatever value the market puts on it etc etc

Indeed; your solution?

Whereas the currency-issuing government CAN 'negotiate a better deal with the banks' - it can by-pass them altogether, and fund mimimum incomes above poverty level.   

Quote:

The $8 figure came from a report by Everybody’s Home, a housing affordability campaign that claims once you factor in the average rent in capital cities in Australia

Morons.

Why would a single person on welfare be paying the average rental cost for a capital city? Far fewer than 50% of Australian renters pay that much rent.