One in five Australian renters are living without essential items and in poverty, peak body study finds

Comments

• Nath@aussie.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  We’re paying $39k/year for a 3x1. There are full time jobs out there paying less than that. Yes, we’re in a nice location, but awful locations are not that much cheaper.

  I am not surprised many people are doing it tough. Imagine the median salary in Australia is currently $80k. Take $16.5k for tax and you’re left with $63.5k take-home. Say you find a cheap house to rent at only $30k/ year ($575/week - doable for now, but you’re likely far from town).

  Now your family is living on $33.5k for the year. Less than $650 a week for everything else. Food, transport, utilities, etc.

  $80k was a good salary 10 years ago. I don’t think you could raise a family on it, today. And half of Australia is making less than that!

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  • dgriffith@aussie.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    $80k was a good salary 10 years ago. I don’t know how you could raise a family on it, today. And half of Australia is making less than that!

    You can do it, but:

    • You can’t live within 1.5 hours of capital cities or major regional cities.
    • You can’t live in a mining town.
    • You can’t live in a tourist town.

    Unfortunately all the left over places have shit job opportunities, shit services, and are generally classified as shit areas as a result.

    So until you advance enough in a career that you can pull a tree change to somewhere less pricey and still keep your income, you’re screwed.

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    • hanrahan@slrpnk.net ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      and are generally classified as shit areas as a result.

      But that’s subjective yeah ? I’m hear visiting my 83yr old mother on the Sunshine Coast over Christmas, this place is to me a literal “shit hole”. It’s mostly a sprawling mess of hot terrible housing with acres of concrete and asphalt with a car needed to do anything and zero redeeming qualities. For a few days prior I visited my sister in Brisbane, another sprawling mess of hot terrible housing with zero redeeming features.

      I used to live in an apartment I owned on the 10th floor with an ocean view on the Gold Coast, cool beezes, a walk to swimmable broadwater and a tram and train were some compensation.

      The tiny rural town in Tasmania I now live in to me is comparative nirvana. There are basic houses near me for sale starting with a 3 and quite nice ones starting with a 4. We have a little van, as for sure u need a car occasionally but we mostly walk or cycke. I filled it up in August and it’s still on 1/2 a tank.

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  • Taleya@aussie.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yeah that ‘average salary’ is lies damned lies and statistics

    The actual median personal income is around $58k

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    • Cypher@aussie.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      When you break it down by region it makes a bit more sense but plenty of people are still doing it tough.

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    • hanrahan@slrpnk.net ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      In this release, ‘migrants’ refers to people who have arrived in Australia since January 2000, and includes permanent migrants who have become Australian citizens during this period.

      Is that a peculiar way to be refered to. When is an Australian citizen not a migrant ?

      Yeah that ‘average salary’ is lies damned lies and statistics

      Only if you don’t understand the difference between avergae (mean) and median. A kid working at Maccas twice a week can skew the diffeence as much as the repugnant wage paid to the Macquaire Bank CEO.

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    • Nath@aussie.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I admit that I was surprised that $80k was median salary - I just asked Google “Median Salary Australia” and didn’t follow the links etc. Your source is great, but three financial years old. Seek reckon the current median salary is $65k, though their ads probably skew a tad high. It isn’t enough of a difference from $58k to argue much over.

      $58k or $65k (or even $80k), it doesn’t change the point I was making: It is not at all surprising that people are doing it tough.

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    • Mirshe@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Average salary metrics are useless in an era of CEOs and executives getting paid millions a year.

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• Reverendender@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Is a 3x1 a 3 bedroom 1 bath apartment?

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  • StudChud@aussie.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yes. A 3x1 = 3bed and 1bath. 3x2 = 3bed 2 bath, and so on. Doesn’t have to be apartment or house specific either. My current apartment is 2x1 and the house I was renting previously was 3x1.

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