ACOSS has a strong policy focus on poverty and inequality in Australia.

We are issuing a series of poverty and inequality reports, the first of which is the Poverty in Australia 2013 edition.

This report found that there are approximately 2,265,000 people, or 12.8% of all people in Australia who are living below the OECD poverty line of 50% of median wage.

The report also found that there were some groups particularly at risk, including: people without paid work, children (especially in sole parent families), and people whose main source of income is social security payments.

The poverty report found that

:

• 2,265,000 people (12.8%) were living below the poverty line
• 575,000 children or 17.3% were living below the poverty line
• 63% of people in unemployed households were below the poverty line
• 25% of people in lone parent households were below the 50% poverty line
• 37% of people in households whose main income was social security were living below the poverty line
• Among people in households where the main income earner received the following payments, the following proportions lived below the poverty line, after taking account of housing costs:
  • Newstart Allowance, 52%
  • Parenting Payment, 45%
  • Disability Support Pension, 42%
  • Carer Payment 24%
  • Age Pension, 14%
• 62% of people below the poverty line came from households with social security as their main source of income, but a sizeable minority (29%) were in households with wages as the main income source. This 29% figure is due to the higher number of wage-earning households overall. It is likely that most of these people live in households where people receive part time earnings only, or are raising children on a low wage
• 14% of women were below the poverty line compared to 12% of men
• 54% of people living in households below the poverty line were female compared to 46% male
• 26% of adults living in households below the 50% poverty line came from a non English-speaking country
• The level of poverty was higher (13.1%) outside capital cities than in capital cities (12.6%)
• The proportion of people in poverty rose by approximately a third of a percentage point from 2003 to 2010 but it is difficult to compare poverty levels over the long term due to changes in the various ABS surveys.

I wonder what the percentage is in 2014?