The rich get rich, and the poor get screwed just the same.
The "A Hand Up Not A Hand Out" Senate committee report released today says there are up to 3.5 million people living in poverty in Australia. In case that figure is not alarming enough, look at it this way: almost 20% of the Australian population now live in poverty. But Man Of Steel says that its ok, "although the nation's rich are getting richer, poor Australians were not getting poorer". There are certainly more being poor and staying poor.
Update: Interesting to observe the variations in the number as reported by TV stations' evening news bulletins. Channel 10 at 5pm gave "2.5 million", SBS at 6.30 had "between 1 and 4 million", and the ABC had "3.5 million". By the time of their 9.30 bulletin, SBS had decided it was "up to 4 million".
Using the older, and once widely accepted, Henderson standard, in fact 22.6% of the population is the highest estimate given for the number of Australians living in poverty; the report itself blandly finds "a consensus that [the number] generally ranges from 2 to 3.5 million".
The Report itself needs to be seen as an urgent wake-up. Take for instance the statistic that 38.3 per cent of households surveyed by the ABS reported "missing out on [...] social, cultural and recreational activities". In other words, nearly half the population lacks the means of actually enjoying or enhancing their lives. That is misery of the highest order. What is truly amazing is the complacency of the population in the face of deprivation, servitude, and the increasing disappearance of the right and means to do anything about it.
Item posted by AutoEditor at 2:50 pm ::
