Analysing key Department of Social Services statistics on the eve of International Women’s Day, Anti-Poverty Week found that women make up more than 60% of people relying on the lowest income support payments such as JobSeeker, Parenting Payment Single and Austudy. These payments are as low as $48 per day ($38 for students under 22 years).
In December 2022, there were more than 830,000 children cared for by ~415,000 parents relying on low Working Age Payments.
Poor single Mums are at risk of rental housing crisis
Parenting Payment Single (95.5% of whom are female) have very low home ownership rates compared to many other income support recipients.
In December 2022 there were nearly 1.3 million households in receipt of Commonwealth Rent Assistance. One third of these (413,000), mainly single parents, had children in their care. The Coronavirus Supplement significantly reduced housing stress for Commonwealth Rent Assistance recipients. Rental stress is when housing costs are more than 30% of the gross household income.
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