Monetary and Multidimensional Poverty in Australia: A Dual Measurement Approach

Abstract

Australia's 2024 poverty rate is the highest it has been since 2001. Despite a lack of official poverty measures, recent data has shown that poverty affects 14.4% of the population including one in six children. These rates are higher than when Australia became a signatory of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in 2015, steering it further off course from the goal of halving the proportion of the population living below the national poverty line by 2030. Without an agreed-upon national definition and measures of poverty, it is also hard to meaningfully track progress. Marking the 50th anniversary of the Henderson Inquiry First Main Report, which first called for a national poverty measure, this paper revisits that call with new urgency. Drawing on Australia's current context and international examples, it proposes a dual approach to poverty measurement – monetary and multidimensional – and presents empirical findings from an illustrative model applying both. The paper examines the relationship between monetary and multidimensional poverty and the insights gained by measuring the two side-by-side that neither can yield in isolation. It concludes with recommendations for a legislated national poverty measure, informed by lessons from Canada and New Zealand, which implemented similar frameworks in recent years.