perhaps having some sort of “earnings bank”
There already is this feature in place for CLink recipients. It's called "Working Credits". But, you can only earn 48 "credits" (being dollars) per fortnight, up to a maximum bank of 1000 on JobSeeker. Source
Janine is single, has no children and doesn’t earn an income. Over time, Janine has built up 1,000 Working Credits as part of her JobSeeker payments.
Janine starts a full time job earning $1,600 per fortnight. In the first fortnight the 1,000 Working Credits reduce the amount we count as income from $1,600 to $600. This means Janine gets some JobSeeker Payment that fortnight. Janine’s Working Credit balance is zero.
The next fortnight all of Janine’s income will count. This reduces Janine’s JobSeeker Payment to zero.
My partner went through this recently. She got a casual job (which is great), and used up all of her working credit for the fortnight. I think the amount you can "bank" is a bit too small IMO. Along with the amount you can earn before you're cut off completely. With Cost of Living going through the roof, she's finding that she has to cut back on food and other essentials because rent is getting ridiculous, shopping for food is getting ridiculous and yeah. Plus the risk of it being casual work, there's no guarantee of shifts.