Survey: More Australian Families Live With Less Than $15 A Day

A survey has revealed that a majority of Australian families are struggling to feed their family and are living below the poverty line.

Data from a Salvation Army survey showed that of the 1,380 clients across the country, they found that 69 per cent of them were struggling to get enough food to eat, with many having only $15 a day to feed a family and pay bills.

Vanessa and David Bromley, from Queensland, are one of those families, and they are also having a hard time finding employment and making ends meet for themselves and their two kids — seven-month old Isabella, and four-year-old Ace, who has ADHD.

The couple receive a little over $700 a fortnight in welfare payments, $350 of which goes to rent, leaving a tight budget for bills and necessities. “If we sway or get a bad bill or something that’s not expected, we’re under financial strain drastically,” they said.

Sometimes, the couple go without so their children can eat. “We try to make sure we have enough dinner for everyone,” Ms Bromley said. “But breakfast and lunch is more for the kids and making sure they’ve got what they need.”

The Salvation Army’s Queensland communications and fundraising secretary Major Neil Dickson said that families feel like the government and others had forgotten about them.

“After they’ve paid their rent they have less than $15 a day to feed their family and pay their bills,” he said. “That’s just appalling and shouldn’t be happening in Australia today. This report is not just a bunch of statistics, it’s representative of real families.”

Salvation Army’s John Redfern who works on the frontline witnesses the upsetting reality on a daily basis. He said that even a little increase in welfare payments could make a big difference to the people he helped. “I have a young guy who lives in a caravan park and his exact words to me were, ‘If I got $50 a fortnight more I’d be able to survive’,” he said.

Now, Ms Bromley wants government ministers to try living the way they do for a week so they’ll know how out of touch they are. “That extra, say, $5 for a bus is actually two litres of milk and a loaf of bread that will help us through the week,” she said.

Source: Abc.net.au