Poverty was a tremendously big issue among australians in 1999. In total, 1,837,000 people lived in conditions of poverty and hunger back then: this report will analize the different categories of australian citizens that lived under said conditions.
Elderly people constitued a rather small portion of the total data that has been reported: single aged people reach a mere 6% of the total, which translates to 54 thousand people; aged couples, on the other hand, represent 4% of the population that lived in poverty.
The presence of children in a household’s nucleus is relevant data to be discussed in order to achieve a better understanding of the issue we are discussing in this report: raising hildren is rather costly and is likely to worsen one’s financial situation as we can tell by the data. Families with children might struggle less compared to single parents who can only rely on one salary: the first category (couples with children) can count on two separate salaries which can guarantee a better chance of survival in low wage living – they reach a rather small 12% among the total, meanwhile single parent households reach an outstanding 21% when considering poverty in Australia in 1999, due to the presence of one individual who is able to work and provide for the nucleus.
As I previously stated, raising children is rather costly: single people and couples without children can decide what the best way to spend their paychecks is without having to worry about providing for youngsters. Single individuals who are not parents still struggle with poverty, however the proportion to a single parent is significantly smaller: those kinds of people represent just about 19% of the total population, whereas australian couples who are not parents reach almost the same percentage as a single aged person when talking about poverty – about 7% of the total.
In essence, the less impacted bands of population when taling about poverty in 1999 are aged couples (who can use their retirement bonuses however they like), single elderly people and couples without children.