In 2010, 2,548,000 people (14%) including 603,000 children (18%) lived below the poverty line in Australia. In that year the poverty line for a single adult was $400 per week.
The risk of poverty was much higher for people on unemployment (55%), sole parent (47%) or disability payments (48%). One third of people living in poverty were in a wage-earning household.
To find out who is living in poverty, see the ACOSS ‘Poverty in Australia‘ Report. .
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Just thought I’d drop a line here. $400 a week is $20,800 per year. I’ve a friend who only works a 4-6 months a year, earning very close to $20K before spending the other 6-8 months travelling overseas.
Granted, this lifestyle isn’t followed by the majority of australians, but it’s worth mentioning that branding everyone in the sub 20K bracket as living in poverty isn’t a completely accurate description of the general population, and may not be as ‘deeply disturbing’ as ACOSS claims.
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Yep, that would be unusual. Must have some assets behind them or unusually low living costs. Ideally, poverty measures would include low assets together with low income. The ACOSS measure does include the big one: owner occupied housing.
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