The Costs of Living With Disability in Australia: Accounting for Variable Disability-Related Deprivation in Poverty Measures

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that disability is both a cause and effect of poverty in Australia, yet there are significant gaps in evidence to frame relevant policy solutions. In particular, income-only measures of poverty fail to capture the financial impact on households of direct and indirect costs associated with living with disability, or policy drivers keeping people with disability and their families on low incomes. Understanding the difference in incomes required by households with and without people with disability to obtain equivalent standards of living, variations in nondiscretionary expenses incurred by people with disability with different needs and circumstances, and the financial effects of nonmonetary inequality, requires a multidimensional lens. Addressing governance risks associated with economic inactivity and pressure on government services linked to the growing number of Australians with disability calls for nuanced poverty metrics to identify leverage points for change.