Is the salary of a person is increased by 10% then decreased by 10% What will be the overall impact?

The overall poverty rate in Australia wavered between 11.5% and 14.5% from 1999 to 2017. Poverty declined substantially from 13.1% in 1999
to 11.5% in 2003, then rose sharply during the boom years to 14.4% in 2007. Following the Global Financial Crisis in 2007-08 and a pension increase in 2009, it fell to 12.6%, then rose modestly to 13.1% in 2017.12

The main influences on this have been changes to economic conditions and to Australia’s social security system. In 2009 an increase of $32 a week was granted to the single rate of pensions (excluding the Parenting Payment). This increase, combined with the ongoing indexation of pensions to wage movements, played a large part in the decline in the poverty rate between 2007-08 and 2009-10, although we are unable to measure its impact precisely due to other factors such as economic conditions and rent levels. Find out more on our Causes and Solutions page.

Child poverty has fluctuated at a higher rate, between 14.3% and 18.6% from 1999-00 and 2015-16. It followed a similar path to the overall poverty rate before the GFC, decreasing from 18.6% in 1999-00 to 14.3% in 2003-04, then increasing sharply to 18.1% in 2007-08. However, after the GFC child poverty took a different path to overall poverty. It fell only slightly to 17.8% in 2009-10, decreased to 16.5% in 2013-14, then increased to 17.7% in 2015-16.

These changes in child poverty were influenced by economic conditions, as was the total poverty rate, but changes to the social security system since the GFC have had a direct impact on the increase of child poverty. This is especially true for sole parent families. Parenting Payment, upon which many sole parent families are reliant, was excluded from an increase to pensions in 2009. This was exacerbated by the transfer of 80,000 sole parents from Parenting Payment to the lower Newstart Allowance (now JobSeeker) in 2013, and the freezing of Family Tax Benefits (after accounting for inflation). Find out more on our Causes and Solutions page.