AFI have joined forces with the ACT Council of Social Service to highlight the nature and prevalence of poverty facing people with disability in Canberra through a Factsheet and media release for the Anti-Poverty Weeks 2023. This year, Anti-Poverty Weeks (APW) will be held across two weeks from the 15-27 October around Australia. For the first time in 21 years, APW will be held over a fortnight in recognition of the historic Voice to Parliament Referendum. APW is a time for us all to learn more about the causes and realities of poverty and take collective action to end it.
Factsheet: The Disability Poverty Cycle:
Our joint factsheet with ACTCOSS provides an overview of the Disability Poverty Cycle in the ACT. The factsheet highlights that many people with disability experience poor economic outcomes, un(der)employment, financial hardship and poverty. In 2010, Australia ranked the lowest among OECD countries for the relative income of people with disabilities. It also points out that people with disability represent 44% of people in the two lowest income quintiles with the most recent estimates for the ACT indicating that the weekly personal income of people with disability was estimated as $700, nearly half that of people with no reported disability ($1343).
Read more here: https://actcoss.org.au/publication/factsheet-disability-poverty-2023/
Media Release:
We are also part of a media release from ACTCOSS where we point out that Canberrans with a disability face a triple jeopardy from our city’s high cost of living, low incomes due to unemployment and under employment, plus additional costs of disability which flow from needing to access more expensive and value-added goods and services.
https://actcoss.org.au/news/anti-poverty-weeks-2023/
Other AFI work on poverty:
White Paper on Poverty:
Submission to the Federal Inquiry on Poverty: