Facts from the coalface confirm poverty is easing

As the 2025 report card on Australia’s economy is filled in, the good news is outweighing the bad, as Alan Austin reports.

COLLABORATION BETWEEN a Victorian Government housing unit and the Salvation Army recently transformed an old block of eight flats in Yarraville into 16 modern two-bedroom units. These provide affordable long-term housing for disadvantaged single parents, elderly couples and residents requiring carer support.

This is a micro example of an emerging macro picture, as evidence piles up showing poverty and homelessness steadily reducing.

This column has referenced data from the Productivity Commission, the National Debt Helpline, Services Australia, the Bureau of Statistics and elsewhere showing the number of people in poverty fell in 2024 from its 2023 peak and declined further in 2025.

We now have confirmation that poverty is easing from, arguably, the most credible authority on hardship in the land, the Salvation Army. This Christian church and welfare agency has been in business for 146 years, has local operations in every corner of the continent and provides a wide range of services for people experiencing difficulties. These include relationships, addiction, personal finances, finding shelter, jobs and natural disasters.

Recent annual reports show the quantum of assistance provided to Australians facing hardship, both in people assisted and dollars disbursed. The trend shows poverty worsening up to 2023, then significant improvement. See chart below.

(Data source: Salvation Army annual reports)

Clearly, the needs of Australia’s disadvantaged remain acute. No question. We can be gratified that the Salvos were asked to provide 702,500 bed nights last year, down from 820,000 two years ago. But that’s still 702,500 too many.

The numbers in the column for 2024-25 remain shamefully high. But it is encouraging that both meals and crisis beds provided for the homeless were down more than 14% on two years ago. Total nights of accommodation provided were fewer by 12% and financial counselling sessions were down more than 16%. The other two categories of assistance were down significantly, as were other services not included in this selected list.

Just on logic here, is it possible the Salvos were obliged to cut back on the services they could provide over the last two years due to insufficient funds or staff? This is most unlikely. Its access to revenue from state and federal governments, community fundraising and corporate donors ensures it rarely turns away families in need due to a lack of funds.

Last year, its total revenue was $1.29 billion, an increase of $169.5 million on the 2023 level. Workers in 2025 numbered 32,464, up from below 31,000 in 2023.

It should be noted that the table above was assembled by Independent Australia with no assistance from the Salvation Army, other than publishing the raw data in their annual reports. Any inferences drawn from the chart that the Albanese Government is succeeding do not come from the Salvos, who are scrupulously non-partisan.

To their credit, while they do not highlight that poverty is being alleviated, they do not insist that it is still worsening, either.

In this respect, the Salvos are a welcome contrast to the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) and sundry disreputable food banks, which mendaciously insist that poverty in 2024 and 2025 worsened. This is quite false.

Australia’s welfare watchdog now worse than useless

Recent outcomes on poverty alleviation raise concerns about the merit of Australia’s peak welfare body.

Effective remedial measures

Alleviation of hardship, gradual though it is, appears to be the result of (a) the general economic recovery since 2022, (b) specific measures by local, state and federal governments to assist disadvantaged families, and (c) the excellent work of the Salvation Army and other local agencies.

The adult unemployment benefit is $793.60, up 15.8% on early 2023. (All figures here are fortnightly.) The youth jobless allowance was increased this month to $677.20, up 16.9% on 2023. The single age pension is now $1,079.70, up 15.3 %. The minimum wage is now $1,896.00, up 16.7% since early 2023.

Commonwealth rent assistance for struggling families has increased a commendable 41.9% over that period to $253.82.

Inflation since early 2023 has been just 8.9%, which has ensured that substantial numbers of all those cohorts will have been lifted well above the poverty line.

Wages overall have risen faster than inflation for the last nine quarters straight. Colleague Stephen Koukoulas provided an excellent update on inflation here last week.

Getting to the bottom of inflation in Australia — and it’s not a problem

A closer look at the data suggests Australia’s recent inflation scare was less an economic relapse than a statistical hiccup — and one the RBA risks misreading at its peril.

Most indicators improving or holding steady

Last Wednesday’s housing update from the Bureau of Statistics shows more than 4,000 new public housing units were approved in the last 12 months, making it two years straight with that achievement.

More than 4,000 underway in a year has only happened four times since 2011. Three have been since the 2022 Election.

Total residential units under construction in the 12 months to November reached 195,523, the highest in four years, up 14% on the year before.

Concerns were expressed in mid-2024 when the jobless rate edged above 4% after holding below that psychological level for two years. It rose above 4.3% in June 2025 and hit 4.45% in September. Although that is still low historically, the trend was troubling.

The latest data, however, shows consecutive declines since September, with the November jobless rate back down to 4.32%.

Increasing prosperity nationwide is shown by record spending on luxuries, including dining out, new cars, light aircraft, imported jewellery, cosmetics and overseas travel.

Spending in November on discretionary items reached an all-time high of $51.3 billion, up more than 6% on November 2024 and up 35.4% on discretionary spending in November 2021, during the Coalition’s cost of living crisis.

Progress is underway. We just need another 10,000 or so more apartment blocks like that nifty one the Salvos built in Yarraville.