‘Supercharging’ the Economy: Representations of Youth Unemployment and Welfare During COVID ‐19

The global COVID‐19 pandemic (2020–2022) created profound social policy challenges. In Australia, business closures and rising unemployment prompted a Coalition government to introduce unprecedented income support measures aimed at preventing an economic crisis and softening the financial impacts on citizens. For young people, COVID‐19 exacerbated existing labour market vulnerabilities, particularly in retail, hospitality and tourism, sectors that previously offered many with casual, albeit precarious, employment. The government response included a temporary increase to unemployment payments (JobSeeker) and the introduction of a wage subsidy scheme (JobKeeper) designed to preserve employment relationships. This paper examines whether COVID‐19 created conditions that challenged pejorative constructions of youth unemployment and welfare. Building on earlier empirical work into the youth underclass and guided by stigma‐power theory, the study analyses parliamentary representations of youth unemployment during COVID‐19 and compares them with those of an earlier welfare reform era. The qualitative Hansard analysis shows that while stigmatising language was temporarily muted under crisis conditions, dominant assumptions about responsibility, deservingness and labour market attachment remained largely intact. Rather than signalling a normative shift, COVID‐19 welfare measures reflected a conditional and time‐limited softening of welfare stigma, followed by its reassertion as the economy showed signs of recovery.