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Microburbs Property Data API

LGA - Economy

Welfare payment recipients

GET/v1/lga/{lga_name}/economy/welfare-payments5¢ per call

Number of people receiving each government income-support payment (Age Pension, disability, JobSeeker, youth, parenting, carer, family tax benefit, rent assistance and concession cards) by council area and postcode, per quarter for the last three years.

Coverage: 543 council areas and about 2,630 postcodes across Australia; quarters from July 2023 (September 2023 quarter-end) to April 2026 (June 2026 quarter-end). Period is the first day of the quarter. Current to 2026-06-30. Full description, field list and method: /v1/datasets/welfare-payments.

Authorization

Bearer tokentest

Sandbox key test works for the allowlisted GNAF + SAL — no signup.

Request

The only values you send. Fields under Responses below are what comes back — you never pass those.

Path parameters

lga_namestringrequired

Council (LGA) name exactly as /v1/lga/list returns it, e.g. `Lake Macquarie`.

Query parameters

fieldsstringoptional

Comma-separated subset of: age_pension, disability_support_pension, jobseeker_payment, youth_allowance, youth_allowance_student_and_apprentice, youth_allowance_other, parenting_payment_single, parenting_payment_partnered, carer_payment, carer_allowance, carer_allowance_child_health_care_card_only, family_tax_benefit_a, family_tax_benefit_b, commonwealth_rent_assistance, austudy, abstudy_living_allowance, abstudy_non_living_allowance, special_benefit, pension_concession_card, commonwealth_seniors_health_card, health_care_card, low_income_card. Omit for all.

fromstringoptional

First period to include: 2020, 2020-Q3, 2020-07 or 2020-07-01.

tostringoptional

Last period to include, same formats as `from`.

Responses

Successful Response

application/json

DatasetValuesfields returned to you

datasetstringalways returned

Dataset slug; describe it with /v1/datasets/{slug}.

levelstringalways returned

suburb, lga or block.

areastringalways returned

Canonical name (or mesh-block code) of the area answered.

period_typestringalways returned

snapshot, year, financial_year, quarter or month.

as_ofstring · datealways returned

Date the dataset is current to. Values are never withheld for age; check this instead.

modelledbooleanalways returned

True when the figures are estimates from a model rather than counts or measurements.

fieldsarray of DatasetFieldSeriesalways returned

GET/v1/lga/{lga_name}/economy/welfare-payments

cURL

curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://api.microburbs.com.au/v1/lga/Lake%20Macquarie/economy/welfare-payments' \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer test'

Example Responses

Show schema

{
  "data": {
    "dataset": "welfare-payments",
    "level": "lga",
    "area": "Lake Macquarie",
    "period_type": "quarter",
    "as_of": "2026-06-30",
    "modelled": false,
    "fields": [
      {
        "field": "age_pension",
        "name": "Age Pension",
        "unit": "persons",
        "values": [
          {
            "period": "2025-Q4",
            "period_start": "2025-10-01",
            "value": 30220
          },
          {
            "period": "2026-Q1",
            "period_start": "2026-01-01",
            "value": 30275
          },
          {
            "period": "2026-Q2",
            "period_start": "2026-04-01",
            "value": 30440
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "field": "disability_support_pension",
        "name": "Disability Support Pension",
        "unit": "persons",
        "values": [
          {
            "period": "2025-Q4",
            "period_start": "2025-10-01",
            "value": 8935
          },
          {
            "period": "2026-Q1",
            "period_start": "2026-01-01",
            "value": 9045
          },
          {
            "period": "2026-Q2",
            "period_start": "2026-04-01",
            "value": 9090
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "field": "jobseeker_payment",
        "name": "JobSeeker Payment",
        "unit": "persons",
        "values": [
          {
            "period": "2025-Q4",
            "period_start": "2025-10-01",
            "value": 6530
          },
          {
            "period": "2026-Q1",
            "period_start": "2026-01-01",
            "value": 6620
          },
          {
            "period": "2026-Q2",
            "period_start": "2026-04-01",
            "value": 6720
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Successful Response200

application/json

About this dataset

543 council areas and about 2,630 postcodes across Australia; quarters from July 2023 (September 2023 quarter-end) to April 2026 (June 2026 quarter-end). Period is the first day of the quarter. Current to 2026-06-30; refreshed quarterly.

What it is

Quarterly counts of people receiving each main government income-support payment or concession card, for every council area and every postcode, from September 2023 to June 2026 (12 quarters).

What it shows

For each area and quarter, how many people receive the Age Pension, Disability Support Pension, JobSeeker Payment, Youth Allowance (students and apprentices, other, and combined), Parenting Payment (single and partnered), Carer Payment and Carer Allowance, Family Tax Benefit A and B, Commonwealth Rent Assistance, Austudy, ABSTUDY and Special Benefit, plus holders of the main concession cards. Each payment is its own field. Counts are rounded to the nearest 5.

Why use it

A direct, local read on household financial stress and ageing. Use it to find areas with many renters on rent assistance, a growing JobSeeker caseload, a high disability or carer load, or a retiree-heavy population; to add an economic backdrop to a suburb or council report; or to build dashboards that track local welfare dependence over time.

How it is built

We take the quarterly administrative counts of payment recipients, for the council area and postcode of each recipient's address, and match each area to our council and postcode names. Counts are people, not dollars, and rounded to the nearest 5, so very small areas show 0 or 5 and tiny changes are noise. One person can receive more than one payment, and a payment can include dependants or carers of another recipient, so payments must not be added together to give a total on income support; concession card holders overlap the payments too. Postcodes and council areas are different boundary sets, so postcode counts do not add to council counts exactly, and a few non-geographic postcodes (PO boxes, large-user codes) are not returned. Council boundaries follow the edition current in each quarter, matched by name.

Fields

Field	Unit	Description
`age_pension` Age Pension	persons	People receiving the Age Pension. Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`disability_support_pension` Disability Support Pension	persons	People receiving the Disability Support Pension. Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`jobseeker_payment` JobSeeker Payment	persons	People receiving JobSeeker Payment (the main unemployment payment). Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`youth_allowance` Youth Allowance (total)	persons	People receiving Youth Allowance, students and apprentices plus other recipients, summed. Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`youth_allowance_student_and_apprentice` Youth Allowance (student and apprentice)	persons	People receiving Youth Allowance as a student or apprentice. Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`youth_allowance_other` Youth Allowance (other)	persons	People receiving Youth Allowance who are looking for work or otherwise not studying. Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`parenting_payment_single` Parenting Payment (single)	persons	Single parents receiving Parenting Payment. Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`parenting_payment_partnered` Parenting Payment (partnered)	persons	Partnered parents receiving Parenting Payment. Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`carer_payment` Carer Payment	persons	People receiving Carer Payment for providing full-time care. Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`carer_allowance` Carer Allowance	persons	People receiving Carer Allowance, a supplement for people caring for someone with a disability or medical condition. Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`carer_allowance_child_health_care_card_only` Carer Allowance (child health care card only)	persons	Carers who hold only the child health care card part of Carer Allowance. Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`family_tax_benefit_a` Family Tax Benefit Part A	persons	Families receiving Family Tax Benefit Part A, the per-child payment. Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`family_tax_benefit_b` Family Tax Benefit Part B	persons	Families receiving Family Tax Benefit Part B, the single-income and sole-parent family payment. Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`commonwealth_rent_assistance` Commonwealth Rent Assistance	persons	People or families getting Commonwealth Rent Assistance on top of another payment to help with private rent. Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`austudy` Austudy	persons	People receiving Austudy (students aged 25 and over). Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`abstudy_living_allowance` ABSTUDY (living allowance)	persons	Students receiving the ABSTUDY living allowance. Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`abstudy_non_living_allowance` ABSTUDY (non-living allowance)	persons	Students receiving ABSTUDY payments other than the living allowance. Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`special_benefit` Special Benefit	persons	People receiving Special Benefit, a payment of last resort for people in hardship who cannot get another payment. Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`pension_concession_card` Pensioner Concession Card holders	persons	People holding a Pensioner Concession Card. Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`commonwealth_seniors_health_card` Commonwealth Seniors Health Card holders	persons	People holding a Commonwealth Seniors Health Card. Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`health_care_card` Health Care Card holders	persons	People holding a Health Care Card. Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.
`low_income_card` Low Income Card holders	persons	People holding a Low Income Health Care Card. Count of recipients at the end of the quarter, rounded to the nearest 5.