When Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg front up to the media on Tuesday to announce phase two of the JobKeeper and JobSeeker programs, they will be able to claim victory in the way the wage subsidy program has cushioned the economy during the pandemic.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
According to selected takeouts from the government's review of the JobKeeper program, the average downturn of businesses under the program was 37 per cent, and almost 1 million organisations claimed the payment for 3.5 million workers.
The introduction of the program "put a brake on the rapid employment decline" that started in the middle of March, the report said.
And if you remember that it was originally projected to cost $130 billion, these results have also come in under budget.
The money paid out under the program between its commencement and May 24 was $20.3 billion - Treasury estimates that was worth 7 per cent of gross national income in that time.
READ MORE:
These are numbers not to be sniffed at.
But the list of achievements that can be notched up to the JobKeeper program also highlight the mountain there is still to climb for the economy.
Tuesday's announcement will attempt to balance removing the payment for those who no longer need it, keeping the lifeline in place for businesses that do need it, and working out which businesses are being kept afloat when they are actually no longer viable.
Business closures have been down on average since March, when laws were brought in protecting business directors from consequences over trading while insolvent. There has been warnings that if the JobKeeper program was to end suddenly in September at the same time that debt deferrals also end, the economy could fall off a cliff.
Tuesday's announcement will attempt to remove this cliff, with the current $1500 a fortnight payment to be replace with two lower payments, to come into place at the end of September, when the current program will end as scheduled.
The new targeted programs will help those businesses who are not snapping back, particularly those in Victoria and tourism operators who will continue to be affected by closed international and interstate borders.
It is still to be seen what Australia's economy will look like at the end of the year, but it will be a shadow of how it started 2020. This program has stemmed the loss of jobs, but there is still work to do.