Key findings
Using the latest data from the Melbourne Institute’s HILDA Survey for 2022-23:
• The poverty line is $584 a week for a single adult and $1,226 a week for a couple
with two children.
When using the poverty line of 50% of median household after-tax income minus
housing costs, we find that:
• More than one in seven people in Australia (14.2%) live below the poverty line .
That amounts to 3,706,000 people.
• One in six children under 15 years (15.6%) live in poverty. That amounts to 757,000
children.
• After the COVID lockdowns, from 2020-21 to 2022-23, poverty increased due to
the removal of COVID income supports and large increases in rents. From June
2021 to June 2023, the median advertised rent for units rose from $486 per week
to $680 in Sydney (40%), from $395 to $528 in Melbourne (34%), and from $394
to $554 in Brisbane (41%).
• The proportion of all people in poverty rose by 1.8 percentage points from 12.4%
(one in eight) in 2020-21 to 14.2% (one in seven) in 2022-23.
• The depth of poverty (average gap between incomes of people in poverty and
the poverty line) increased from $372 per week to $390 over the same two-year
period.
• Although the real increases in social security payments introduced by the
Government in 2023 reduced the gaps between payments and the poverty line,
these gaps remain substantial, especially for people on Youth Allowance or
Jobseeker Payment.
° After the increases in September 2023, maximum Youth Allowance payments
for a person living away from the parental home were $279 per week below
the poverty line, Jobseeker for a single person was $205 below the line, and
Jobseeker and Family Tax Benefits for a couple with two school age children
were $299 below the line.
° The largest increases in payments were for sole parents with children eight to
12 years, which rose by $134 per week in the case of a sole parent family with
two children (8-12 years) but were still $163 below the poverty line. This was
mainly due to the extension of Parenting Parent Single (PPS) to those whose
youngest child was eight to 13 years old. However the majority of sole parents
on income support (who were already receiving PPS) did not benefit from this
increase in payments.