Update: Unemployed set to receive $75 energy payment after Frydenberg reverses budget stance

The welfare sector says the 2019 Federal Budget has failed to address the Newstart allowance, leaving jobseekers on an income that has not risen in 25 years.

And in a move that appears to add insult to injury, people on Newstart, who receive just $269.40 week, will be excluded from claiming the one-off energy assistance cash payments announced in the budget for those on low incomes.

The president of the Australian Council of Social Service, Cassandra Goldie, has described the omission as a "travesty".

The St Vincent de Paul Society National Council says it is harsh and mean.

"It fails to address two dominant drivers of poverty and disadvantage in Australia - the soaring costs of basic housing and below-poverty-level income support payments," said the society's president Claire Victory.

"We are worried about what appears to be an ongoing meanness (by the present government) in the context of 'personal responsibility'. "

Australian Council of Social Service CEO Cassandra Goldie. Credit: Mick Tsikas / AAP

The Newstart allowance for job-seekers is now 35 per cent lower than the age pension, which is $834.40 per fortnight.

The Council of The Ageing says one-off payments for pensioners are welcome.

But it says the government's ongoing failure to lift unemployment benefits, and quarantining Newstart recipients from cash energy payments, has left almost 350,000 people older than 45 out in the cold.

"There are more unemployed workers between 55 and 64 than any other group of Australians and they receive Newstart income support payments longer than any other group as well," said the council's chief executive Ian Yates.

- with AAP