One million people – including one in seven children – are living below the poverty line in New South Wales, according to a new report highlighting the deepening inequality across Sydney.
New research from the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling and based on 2021 census data also found at least 100,000 more people had slipped into poverty since 2016.
Preliminary findings from the research, commissioned by the NSW Council of Social Service, also found 15% of children, aged under 15, across the state were living in poverty.
The highest rates of child poverty were in western Sydney, including more than a third of children in Auburn and 41% of those in South Granville.
The Ncoss chief executive, Joanna Quilty, expected the figures had worsened since the data was collected amid rising interest rates, inflation and the spiralling cost of living.
“We can only imagine that, while things were pretty grim for some people in particular in 2021, they’ve got a hell of a lot worse since,” she said.
The poverty line is defined as being 50% below the median household income – for greater Sydney and the rest of the state. Adjustments were made depending on the number and age of people living in each household.
Quilty said the new state government needed to act quickly to reduce poverty, including making major commitments to improve housing affordability including boosting social housing stock.
“We absolutely need our new government to focus really strongly on closing this widening divide and ensuring that social inequality doesn’t continue to rampage through our state,” Quilty said.
“Social housing performs that safety net role – it provides that stable foundation so that people are better able to get on with their lives.”
She said Ncoss and other housing groups were pushing for 10% of housing stock across the state to be social and affordable housing by 2050, with a more urgent target of 5,000 more social housing dwellings for people fleeing domestic violence.
“Having a long-term plan, having that target of 10% of all dwellings being social house social and affordable housing and working progressively towards that plan, we think needs to be an absolute priority,” Quilty said.
The research also found the situation was far worse in western Sydney, including suburbs like Penrith, Ashcroft, and Smithfield, than it was in the eastern suburbs.
“The so-called ‘latte line’ is becoming an impenetrable wall between those sitting pretty and those whose day-to-day lives are a constant struggle,” Quilty said.
“It tells us that we have not shifted the dial on poverty rates over the past five years.”
Quilty said interventions like school tutoring programs needed to be targeted to areas where child poverty was on the rise to break the cycle.
Western Sydney proved pivotal in the weekend election when Labor regained multiple key seats as the demographics continue to shift. Christopher Brown, the chair of the Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue, said the swing against the Liberals was a result of communities hurting from a worsening cost-of-living crisis.
There was a significant increase in the number of people aged over 65 – especially women in the private rental market – who had entered poverty in the five years to 2021.
Older people accounted for 50,000 of the extra people that had fallen below the poverty line.
The report also found that single parents were more likely to live in poverty compared with couples with children.
A final report will be published later this year alongside further recommendations for the Minns government.
