SYDNEY, Oct 13: The number of people living in poverty in Australia has increased to 3.7 million in 2022-2023, according to the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) and University of New South Wales (UNSW).
They found that 14.2 per cent of the Australian population, 3.7 million people, was living in poverty in 2022-23.
The report, Poverty In Australia 2025: Overview, marks an increase from 2020-21, when 12.4 per cent of the population, the equivalent of one in eight people, was living in poverty.
Yuvisthi Naidoo, senior research fellow at UNSW’s Social Policy Research Centre, said that a steep increase in rents has had a particularly severe impact on Australians with the lowest incomes.
The report found that from June 2021 to June 2023, the median advertised rent for units increased by 41 per cent in Brisbane, 40 per cent in Sydney and by 34 per cent in Melbourne.
According to the report the poverty rate for Australian children in 2022-23 was one in every six, equating to 757,000 children living in poverty.
ACOSS Chief Executive Officer Cassandra Goldie said that the federal government has taken some steps to reduce poverty, but that much more needs to be done to turn around the current trend.
“The government must fix woefully inadequate income support payments, set targets, boost social housing and commit to full employment. It should also adopt time-linked targets for poverty reduction to hold us all to account,” she said in a media release.
–BERNAMA-XINHUA