‘Sustenance’ works for Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 led to the Great Depression and the collapse of the Australian economy. At its worst, unemployment in Australia reached 32 per cent in 1932. Hundreds of thousands of Australians were out of work.

By 1932 more than 60,000 men, women and children depended on government payments for food, called ‘susso’ (short for ‘sustenance’), which allowed them to buy only small amounts of food. Sometimes men had to work for their ‘susso’ payments.