Earning incentive payments

Young people receiving Youth Payment can earn the following incentive payments:

• education incentive of $10 a week
• budgeting incentive of $10 a week

A young person on the Youth Payment can earn the education incentive if:

• their service provider or Work and Income 'in-house' service have confirmed to YSSU that since they started receiving the Youth Payment they have continuously attended and participated in either education, training or work-based learning for at least 6 calendar months

A young person on the Youth Payment can earn the budgeting incentive if:

• their service provider or Work and Income 'in-house' service have confirmed to YSSU that since they started receiving the Youth Payment they have attended and participated in discussions on budgeting with the service provider or Work and Income 'in-house' service provider for at least 3 calendar months

and

• they have attended and completed a budgeting programme (this can have completed before the client started getting their benefit)

A young person can earn the budgeting incentive after 3 months of satisfactorily meeting their budgeting requirements.

Incentive payments are non-taxable allowances and are not considered chargeable income for Extra help and hardship assistance.

For more information see:

• Removing incentive payments
• Examples of actions inconsistent with purpose
• Incentive payments can continue
• Restoring incentive payments
• Obligations