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Percentage of children in poverty from 1999-2019

PovertyHeadline chartspoverty

This graph shows the percentage of children in poverty from 1999 – 2019, using the 50% of median income after-housing costs poverty line.

The poverty line used is 50% of median income, taking account of housing costs. The lower (dark blue) line shows poverty rates measured using the pre-2007 ABS income definition, while the higher (red) line is based on the post 2007 income definition. The light blue line shows the quarterly changes in poverty rates during the 2019-20 period.

It shows that child poverty, alongside the overall poverty rates, declined substantially from 1999 to 2003 (from 18.6% to 14.3%), then rose to 18.8% in 2007. It fell gradually to 17.6% in 2017.

It also shows that child poverty rose sharply than fell dramatically during the first year of the pandemic (2019-20); from 16.2% in the September quarter of 2019 to 19% in the March quarter of 2020, then fell to 13.7%, a two-decade low, in June 2020.

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