WA State election 2025: Record numbers need help in cost-of-living crunch, welfare agencies report

The cost-of-living crisis continues to cripple West Australians, with a leading welfare agency revealing it’s received a record amount of pleas for help. And in a worrying development, people in secure employment are reaching out for assistance more than ever before. With cost-of-living the No.1 issue in this year’s State and Federal elections, the Financial Wellbeing Collective said more West Aussies sort their help last month since the group started publishing data in January 2022. The collective’s emergency relief and food access service had 3827 people contact them in January — an 87 per cent increase on the same month three years ago. Calls for help to the collective in January 2022 — the same year Anthony Albanese became Prime Minister — were 2042. A staggering 90 per cent of people seeking assistance cited huge hikes in living expenses as the reason they needed help. “We experienced record call-numbers to our Emergency Relief and Food Access Service in January as clients grapple with the cost of living,” Financial Wellbeing Collective general manager Helena Jakupovic said. “With persistent high-living costs, many of our emergency relief clients have exhausted their financial reserves and our now relying on services such as ours to feed their family.” Ms Jakupovic said the perceptions that only unemployed people needed help was wrong, with January’s figures showing people with jobs were a growing cohort who could not make ends meet. Employed West Australians accounted for 14 per cent of those seeking help. “More employed clients than ever are reaching out for help,” Ms Jakupovic said. Paid employment has generally been seen as a guarantee against being in poverty, but that’s not the case anymore. “Year-on-year, January comparisons shows a 225 per cent increase in employed clients accessing emergency relief over the last 4 Januarys,” Ms Jakupovic. “These are working people and families who are struggling to put food on the table. “January can be a hard time off the back of the festive season, but we’ve never had call numbers this high. “After paying their rent or mortgage, and other essentials like fuel and utilities, there is no money left for food and school supplies. “It is disgraceful that, in one of the richest States in Australia, hardship is becoming more commonplace _ so much so that a growing number of Western Australians are battling to feed their families.” Private renters accounted for 41 per cent of calls to the collective, which represents 12 WA frontline agencies, including Mission Australia, Uniting and Anglicare. Homeowners with mortgages accounted for 11 per cent of calls. Labor has so far announced $2.1 billion in election promises, including cost-of-living measures like student assistance payments. But Anglicare WA boss Mark Glasson called on Labor to do more. “There’s no doubt that the measures that have been announced to date have been really helpful,” he said. “The Rent Relief Scheme has supported thousands of families, so that’s really good. “The problem we have is the scale of the issue that we’re facing, and the response isn’t meeting the scale. “We would ask the Government to focus on increasing the scale and pace of change. “We need to look at better concessions, giving people relief from utilities and other bills, registrations, licenses. We need to see a continuation of the rent relief scheme, we know that works.“ Although Mr Cook’s Labor Government is all but assured of victory on March 8, polling shows a tight race in the Federal poll. Since Mr Albanese won Government, there has been 13 interest rate hikes, as well as massive rises in living expenses. Federal Liberal leader Peter Dutton has questioned whether Australian’s standard of life has improved under Labor.