Poverty in Australia
In 2020, the Australian Council of Social Service released a report stating that relative poverty was growing in Australia.
It estimated that 3.2 million people, or 13.6% of the population, were living below the internationally-accepted relative poverty threshold of 50% of a country's median income.
For example, the Smith Family and NATSEM (The National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling) report in 2000 indicated as many as 1 in 8 Australians are experiencing poverty.
For advanced economies, the Human Poverty Index (HPI-2) was developed, which takes into consideration the higher levels of income, health, and education in these countries.
It was $62.70 a week, which was the disposable income required to support the basic needs of a family of two adults and two dependent children at the time.
This poverty line has been updated regularly by the Melbourne Institute to reflect the increase in average incomes; for a single unemployed person, it was $445.40 per week (including housing costs) in March 2020.
[12] In Australia, the OECD poverty would equate to a "disposable income of less than $358 per week for a single adult (higher for larger households to take account of their greater costs).
[3] as of recent times, the amount of money a family with 2 adults and 2 dependent children needs to survive has jumped to $1145.61 per week due to inflation and increased grocery prices.
[15] National Centre For Social And Economic Modeling (NATSEM) suggests another reason for high child poverty rates could be the unavailability of affordable housing for low-income adults.
The mid-to-late Sixties, however, saw a "rediscovery" of poverty, as it was found that many Australians had failed to share in the post-war economic boom.
According to one academic in 1960, Helen Hughes, about a third of the half a million widows and aged and invalid pensioners in Australia were estimated by social workers to be living in poverty.
Research into the extent of poverty in Australia was also undertaken by the Victorian and Australian Councils of Social Service, while the church-based welfare agency, the Brotherhood of St. Laurence, carried out a number of studies into the needs of low-income families and pensioners.
[22] In 1963, a Melbourne university lecturer called Ray Brown estimated that 5% of Australians lived in chronic poverty, with articles published in the radical magazine "Dissent" by David Scott, Leon Glezer, and Michael Keating coming to similar conclusions.
[24] A report by Justice John A. Nimmo from the start of the Seventies estimated that there were about a million Australians living below a "miserably poor poverty line.
"[25] Other studies on poverty carried out by the International Labour Office in Geneva also revealed high incidents[spelling?]
Based on this figure, 7.7% of all family units in Melbourne lived on or below the poverty line, while an additional 5.2% "hovered dangerously close to the minimum level".
The poverty line was set at 56.5% of average earnings for a "standard" family (consisting of a male breadwinner, a woman not in paid employment, and two dependent children).
