Unemployed Aussies will be get $50-a-fortnight more in their dole when the coronavirus supplement ends in March – but employers will have the power to dob in anyone refusing a job offer.

The federal government announced the dole would be lifted to $615.70 a fortnight, up from the base rate of $565.70 a fortnight.

About 1.95 million people will receive the rise from April 1.

Job seekers’ obligations will also be increased, with the number of job searches required each month to rise gradually to 20 from July 1, and a new hotline for employers will be put in place to discourage people from refusing offers of work.

This means more employers will be hit with thousands of meaningless and unsuitable job applications and who will then complain there’s a ‘skills crisis’.

The new employer hotline means people who reject work for $7.00 an hour under a sexist pig, can be dobbed in by piggy to the government,who says they ‘failed’ the mutual obligation test.

The new rate is equivalent to an increase of under $4 a day – about the price of a coffee. Poverty and financial hardship creates a raft of challenges.

Expect more family conflicts and separations, family violence, substance misuse and abuse, housing stress and homelessness and crime. $4.00 a day isn’t going to cut it.

Even so, people will be able to earn $150 a fortnight before they start to see a reduction in their payments.

At the moment, with the $150 coronavirus supplement, unemployed households receive $715.70 a fortnight before considering other payments.

The supplement will also be paid to those on other government payments, such as Youth Allowance, Austudy and Parenting Payments.

About 240,000 single parents with a child under the age of eight will receive $850.20 a fortnight under the new plan.

Another 290,000 Australians on JobSeeker who receive Commonwealth rent assistance will get $768.80 a fortnight.