"Ross River virus affects more than 6,000 Australians every year. If we can find a way to prevent the virus surviving in mosquitoes we can stop it infecting humans.”16 September: Increasing the age pension by $30 a week will not put those living solely on the single age pension above the poverty line according to researchers with NATSEM at the University of Canberra.
NATSEM Principal Research Fellow and co-author of Old, Single and Poor, Robert Tanton said, "The increase being suggested by lobby groups (to 66 per cent of the age couple pension, or about $30 per week) is still not enough to put many single age pensioners above our modelled poverty line. Having 36.5 per cent of older single people in poverty is still a significant number in poverty. NATSEM’s research shows that there is still some way to go in the pension rate to lift single age pensioners above the poverty line."
NATSEM found that the current benefit paid to single age pensioners was about 15 per cent below the poverty line. Increasing the age single pension to 66 per cent of the age couple pension would mean that the benefit paid would still be below the poverty line, but by only 4 per cent. If implemented, the cost of this policy change to the single age pension would be in the order of $1.3 billion.
The research also shows that while any change to the single age pension would apply to all single age pensioners no matter where they live, some of the strongest regional effects of this proposed policy change will be in regional New South Wales.
Old, Single and Poor will be presented at the United Nations University on 25 September at a conference called Frontiers of poverty analysis. A report on the research is available on NATSEM’s website:www.natsem.canberra.edu.au
