Singles, men and elderly the new poor

from The Sydney Morning Herald

Adele Horin

MORE Australians were poor in 2003 than in 1990 despite generous family payments and a booming economy, new research shows.

The results reveal that 12.9 per cent of Australians were poor in 2003, compared with 11.6 per cent in 1990.

But the face of poverty is changing. Single people, men, and the elderly were more likely to be poor than in the past, and children were better off.

The analysis, showing a major change in the composition of the poor, has been provided to the Herald by Roger Wilkins, a senior research fellow at the Melbourne institute of applied economic and social research at the University of Melbourne.

"The spoils of the boom are not being shared equally," Dr Wilkins said. "There is no reason for anyone to be in poverty."

The research shows the Howard Government's family payments have improved the position of all families with children, but the big fall in sole parent poverty occurred in the early 1990s. The proportion of children under 15 in poverty fell from 24.7 per cent in 1990 to 18 per cent in 2003.

A failure to increase payments to other groups meant they had fallen behind the community, Dr Wilkins said. The Newstart Allowance, Youth Allowance and Austudy, for example, were indexed to Consumer Price Index increases, not wages.

Single people have been hard hit, the data shows. At the start of the 1980s, less than 18 per cent of single people were poor. The proportion rose to 21.4 per cent in 1990 and 25.7 per cent in 2003. Now singles comprise 46 per cent of Australians in poverty, compared with 39 per cent in 1990.

At the same time, couples with children made up a smaller proportion of the poor - falling from 30 per cent in 1990 to 24 per cent.

An increasing proportion of men have fallen on hard times. Almost 12 per cent of men were poor compared with 9.7 per cent in 1990. Women were still more likely to be poor - at 13.9 per cent - about the same proportion as 13 years ago.

Couples without children also made up a higher proportion of the poor, and the elderly were at greater risk. Australians over 65 comprised 16 per cent of those in poverty compared with 12 per cent in 1990 - probably there were more of them, and most were on the pension.

The analysis, based on Australian Bureau of Statistics income data, defines poverty as less than half the median income (adjusted for family size). While this is the definition used by the OECD, and is widely accepted, Dr Wilkins said that "measuring poverty is a task fraught with controversy".