Welfare spending across Australia has risen by $40 billion in nine years and now accounts for a larger slice of the economy, a national report has found.
The Commonwealth, state and territory governments spent roughly $157 billion on welfare cash payments and services in 2015-16, up from $117 billion in 2006-07.
The figures have been laid out in a biennial Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report released on Thursday.
More than two-thirds of cash payments ($105 billion) went to specific populations excluding the unemployed, with just 6.3 per cent ($10 billion) spent on unemployment benefits.
Some 27 per cent of the welfare spending ($42 billion) was allocated to services.
The overall increase meant welfare spending accounted for 9.5 per cent of gross domestic product, compared with 8.6 per cent nine years earlier.
An estimated 478,000 people were employed in the welfare workforce in 2015, an increase of 84 per cent since 2005.
One in nine (or 2.7 million) Australians were informal carers.
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