Poverty growing in Last month the nation’s peak body, the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), launched research to show that one in seven now live ‘below the internationally accepted line’, meaning that ‘2.5 million people or 13.9% of all Australians are living in poverty’.

Poverty line (50% of median income) - for a single adult was $400 per week, for a couple with 2 children it was $841 per week;

Poverty rate - 2,548,496 people (13.9% of all people) living below the poverty line, after taking account of their housing costs;

Child poverty - 602,604 children (17.7% of all children) living below the poverty line;

Income support - 40.1% of people on social security payments living below the poverty line. Includes 55.1% of those on Newstart Allowance, 50.6% on Youth Allowance; 47.2% on Parenting Payment, 48% on Disability Support Pension, 24.8% on Carer Payment, and 15.7% of those on Age Pension;

Unemployed - 61.2% of people who are unemployed were living below the poverty line;

Working poor - 33.2% of people below the poverty line came from a household with wages as their main income;

Overall growth in poverty - Poverty increased between 2010 and 2012 by nearly one per cent (from 13% to 13.9).

Location (13.8% of poverty occurs in capital cities, compared to 14% outside capital cities)

Tasmania - 15.1% (Hobart 13.8%, rest of state 16%)

Queensland - 14.8% (Brisbane 13.9%, rest of state 15.4%)

New South Wales - 14.6% (Sydney 15%, rest of state 13.8%)

Victoria - 13.9% (Melbourne 13.7%, rest of state 14.3%)

Western Australia - 12.4% (Perth 12.4%, rest of state 12.4%)

South Australia - 11.7% (Adelaide 11.5%, rest of state 12.5%)

Australian Capital Territory and the - 9.1% (No separate data available due to small sample sizes in ABS survey).

Most at risk groups

Women - significantly more likely to experience poverty than men (14.7% compared to 13%); Children and older people - face higher risks of poverty compared to other age groups (17.7% and 14.8% respectively);

Sole parents - at high risk with 33% in poverty in 2012 and 36.8% of all children in poverty were in sole parent households;

Born overseas - Poverty is higher amongst adults born in countries where the main language is not English (18.8%) than amongst those born overseas in an English speaking country (11.4%), or in Australia (11.6%);

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people - ABS data does not include information to accurately measure this poverty rate, however 2011 HILDA data found 19.3% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in poverty, compared to 12.4% of the total Australian population;

People with a disability - latest available data does not allow this poverty rate to be calculated. However, the previous ACOSS report found 27.4% of people with a disability were living in poverty in 2009-2010, compared to 12.8% for the total population.