Today’s announcement comes ahead of Thursday’s economic update, which is expected to show the true depth of Australia’s recession. 

According to a summary of the review’s findings, issued by the Treasury, the JobKeeper review has made numerous valuable discoveries, but one of the most poignant is the scheme’s tendency to create “adverse incentives”, which is why JobKeeper 2.0 will be a scaled-down, two-tiered version of its predecessor.

Aside from tightening eligibility, the post-September JobKeeper will reflect hours worked prior to the pandemic, offering a lower subsidy rate to those that were earning less — unlike the current scheme which has meant a quarter of participants receiving the payment have had an income rise compared to February.

“Several industry stakeholders advised the review team of instances where part-time workers have been reluctant to do additional hours of work more commensurate with the JobKeeper payment, as well as instances where stood-down workers have been reluctant to take on any work hours as businesses have begun to reopen in recent weeks,” the review reads. 

According to the Prime Minister, the new JobKeeper payment will be reduced to $1,200 per fortnight from October, while those working under 20 hours pre-COVID will receive $750 instead of the $1,500 flat rate. As of the start of January until the end of March 2021, the payment will be lowered further to $1,000 and $650, respectively. 

“We made the conscious decision to have a flat rate payment because we understood at that time that people were losing second and third jobs,” PM Morrison said of the original JobKeeper amount. 

"Ensuring we had one flat payment across the entire labour force ensured that we were protecting our social security system and you will also remember the great strains that that system was under early during the crisis." 

He judged that given the changed situation, a two-tiered system is now possible.