The Child Poverty in Australia 2024 report released for Homelessness Week (August 5-11)demonstrates strong links between rising rents and living costs and rising rates of child poverty.
Commissioned by the Valuing Children Initiative for the End Child Poverty campaign, the report shows that cost of living for low-income families is disproportionately affected by rental costs, which make up a bigger slice of their weekly budget.
Rental costs for the average family rose 11.2 percent between 2020 and 2022, but rental costs for lower income families rose by 17.8 per cent.
I think the efforts being done under the Bridging the Gap sort of demonstrate that we need to do a lot more than we’ve done so farVCI founder Tony Pietropiccolo AM
Valuing Children Initiative (VCI) founder AdJ/Prof. Tony Pietropiccolo AM said these figures are a wake-up call to the nation and that we must urgently address the systemic causes of childhood poverty in Australia.
“We are failing every Australian child who each day is going hungry, without a place to call home and reduced educational and life opportunities. Most Australians are shocked to discover that 17 per cent of our kids nationally live in poverty,” he said.
“That’s why we are calling on the Australian government to introduce legislation to end child poverty. We have the wealth, knowledge and means to achieve it.”
Talking to NITV Radio, AdJ/Prof. Tony Pietropiccolo AM confirmed the housing crisis is more acute within First Nations communities stressing that more needs to be done to address it.
“I think the efforts being done under the Bridging the Gap sort of demonstrate that we need to do a lot more than we’ve done so far. There is a significant effort that needs to be made to reduce poverty in the Aboriginal community and Aboriginal families, and housing is absolutely a fundamental part of that.”
Key findings:
- Children who experience poverty and housing stress are significantly more likely to suffer nervousness or feel unhappy with their lives for up to ten years after leaving home.
- Child poverty in Australia has risen significantly as a result in the years since COVID.
- Parents and their children forced to find cheaper housing are six times more likely to be dissatisfied with life and show levels of psychological distress that are on average twice as high as those that don’t.
- Another 102,000 children were plunged into poverty between 2021 and 2022 nationwide
- 3.7 million people and 823,000 children living below the poverty line.
