Fed govt boosts pension payment

THE federal government has announced a boost to pension payments to help 3.6 million pensioners keep pace with rising living costs.

The increase to pension payments will come into effect on March 20 and is aimed at helping pensioners keep up with rises in cost of living expenses, the federal government says.

Federal Minister for Social Services Kevin Andrews said the payment rise had been driven by the consumer price index increase of 1.9 per cent for the first six months to December 2013.

"The coalition government is pleased to deliver increases to those on the Age Pension, Disability Support Pension, Carer Payment and veterans' income support," Mr Andrews said on Sunday.

He signalled another increase would occur in September to reflect growth in the CPI or the Pensioner and Beneficiary Living Cost Index, whichever is higher.

Single age pensioners would receive an increase of $15.70 a fortnight, while age pensioner couples would receive an extra $23.80 a fortnight.

"This means total pension payments for people on the maximum rate will be $842.80 a fortnight for singles, and $1,270.60 a fortnight for couples," Mr Andrews said.

One million allowance recipients would also benefit from a boost to income support payments such as Newstart and Parenting Payment as of March 20.

The announcement comes as the government is considering combining disability payments and payments to the unemployed into a single welfare payment, News Corp Australia reported on Sunday.

Mr Andrews told reporters in Melbourne the government needed to tackle welfare reform because the budget was in a dire position.

The federal opposition believes any move to combine the dole and disability pensions into a universal payment is just putting the boot into disabled people.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten accused the government of persecuting people with disabilities and seeking to slash their incomes.

"They seem to believe that everyone on the disability pension is rorting the system," he told reporters in Hobart.

"That isn't true."

The head of the government's welfare review, Patrick McClure, recommended to the Howard government in 2000 that it create a single, unified payment for all welfare recipients with top up amounts based on further need.

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