A new report released by the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) shows that an estimated 2,265,000 million people, or 12.8 per cent of the population,  are living below the internationally accepted poverty line.

 

The report details the nation’s poverty issues since 2006, showing that people that are already unemployed, children and people whose main source of income is social security payments are the groups most at risk of poverty.

 

"This report reveals that despite years of unprecedented growth and wealth creation, we have made little ground in combatting the scourge of poverty with 1 in 8 people overall and 1 in 6 children living below the poverty line," said ACOSS CEO, Dr Cassandra Goldie.

 

The report found that 37 per cent of people who are dependent on social security as their main source of income are living below the poverty line, while nearly 600,000 children are living in families below the poverty line.

 

"This makes the Federal Government's recent cuts to payments for sole parents all the more disturbing. Under the changes passed in the Senate last week over 100,000 sole parents on the Parenting Payment will be between $60 and $100 a week poorer from January 2013 when those with children over eight years of age are dropped to the lower Newstart Allowance,” Dr Goldie said.

 

"We urge the Commonwealth and state governments to take steps in their next Budgets to reduce poverty, by increasing income support for those in the deepest poverty, strengthening employment services for long-term unemployed people, and easing the high cost of housing for people on low incomes who rent privately.”

 

The full report can be found here