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3 min read

Impact Fund partner ACOSS launches inequality report

ACOSS in partnership with University of New South Wales and with co-funding contributions from ACF’s Impact Fund, Social Justice Fund, Hart Line Fund and Raettvisa Fund have undertaken a study into the causes of poverty and inequality in Australia. The study aims to find policy answers and actions to reduce these social and economic problems.

Almost 3 million people live below the internationally accepted poverty line, and over 700,000 of these people are children. The latest OECD Economic Survey of Australia reports that inequality has risen in this country, and that the level of poverty is unacceptably high.

With high quality research, policy development and advocacy, this partnership aims to focus national attention on poverty and inequality. It monitors trends in poverty and inequality over time and explore the drivers of poverty and inequality to inform effective action to eliminate these problems.

The latest Inequality in Australia report released on Tuesday 31 July 2018 shows a country increasingly divided. The report found that a person with a household income in the highest 20% of the population has five times the disposable income of the lowest 20%.

ACOSS chief executive Cassandra Goldie said “Our finding that those in the highest 1% earn as much in a fortnight as a those in the lowest 5% in a year deeply challenges our sense of Australia as an egalitarian country.”

“The Australian experience in recent decades shows that inequality has increased strongly in economic boom times and flattened with a slower economy and slow wage growth across the board,” she said.