A new report on poverty in Australia has prompted renewed calls for the Newstart allowance to be increased, and for more affordable housing to be created.
It found over 13 per cent of Australia's population live in poverty, putting the country well behind other wealthy Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development nations.
Over 3.2 million Australians are living in poverty, over 770,000 of which are children under the age of 15.
That's according to the "2020 Poverty in Australia Overview" by the Australian Council of Social Service and the University of New South Wales.
In Australia, one in eight adults and one in six children are living below the poverty line.
They are statistics researchers say they expected.
Professor Carla Treloar is the Director of the Social Policy Research Centre at University of New South Wales.
“These rates have been persistent over about a decade despite uninterrupted economic growth over that period and it also shows that compared to internationally wealthy countries Australia is doing poorly. Our results are worse than the majority of other wealthy countries and so we can compare ourselves to countries like New Zealand, Ireland and Germany, and show that we are doing worse in tackling poverty in Australia,” says Prof. Treloar.
In Australia the maximum Newstart payment for a single adult is $559 a fortnight, while single parents can receive up to $604.70.
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