Notes on the data: Housing, rent assistance and vehicle access

Households in dwellings receiving rent assistance from the Australian Government, June 2022

Policy context: Affordable, secure and safe housing is fundamental to one's health and wellbeing, employment, education and other life opportunities. Rent assistance assists low-income people in housing need. It is a subsidy paid largely to people who get social security or other income-support benefits from the Commonwealth government, and who rent in the private rental market, in community housing, and in other renting situations. Most recipients of rent assistance would be paying more than 30% of their gross income on rent if rent assistance was not available - a situation referred to as ‘housing stress’ [1].

In 2019, 43% of all Commonwealth Rental Assistance (CRA) recipients were single with no dependent children. Sole parent families represented 21% of the total rent assistance population. Around 1 in 5 received Newstart Allowance (20%), the Age Pension (22%) or a Disability Support Pension (20%) as their primary pension, allowance or benefit. If not for CRA received, nearly 7 in 10 CRA recipients (69%) would have been in rental stress [2].

The Rental Affordability Index report found that:

A single person solely reliant on JobSeeker payments and Commonwealth Rental Assistance with an estimated gross annual income of $21,320, experience severely unaffordable to extremely unaffordable rents across all metropolitan and regional areas.
The situation is similar for single-pensioner households seeking to rent a one-bedroom dwelling, with extremely unaffordable to severely unaffordable in metropolitan areas, and severely unaffordable to moderately unaffordable in regional areas.
Even a single person on a full-time hospitality income of approximately $63,422 a year was destined for severely unaffordable to moderately unafforable rental stress in both metropolitan and regional areas. [3]

References

Randolph B, Holloway D. Commonwealth rent assistance and the spatial concentration of low income households in metropolitan Australia. (AHURI Final Report Series, vol. 101). Melbourne: Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) UNSW-UWS Research Centre; 2007 [cited: 2013 Oct 18]. Available from: http://www.ahuri.edu.au/research/final-reports/101
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Housing Assistance in Australia 2020. AIHW; 2020 [cited: 2020, Nov 16]. Available from: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/housing-assistance/housing-assistance-in-australia-2020/contents/financial-assistance
SGS Economics and Planning. Rental Affordability Index, Key Findings, November 2022. [cited: 2023 May10]. Available from: https://sgsep.com.au/projects/rental-affordability-index

Notes: The rent assistance data are provided for individual recipients, and there may be multiple individual recipients in a household: to the extent that this occurs, the proportion will be understated. However, dwellings are the most appropriate denominator available for this dataset. In addition, some recipients live in non-private dwellings, which are not included in the denominator: to the extent that this occurs, the proportion will be overstated. Note that the denominator - private dwellings - is based on the 2021 Census as private dwellings data are not available other than Census years.

The numerator (the number of renters) effectively reflects the number of households in an area receiving this assistance.

Population Health Area (PHA) data were derived from already suppressed Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2) data. Therefore, if a PHA includes an SA2 with suppressed data, there could be an undercount of up to 4 dwellings in the PHA.

State and territory totals were also provided. Data in the ‘Unknown’ data row in the Excel data workbooks are calculated from the difference between the sum of the PHA data to the State/Territory totals and include the sum of these suppressed SA2 cells.

Data cells with counts of less than five were suppressed (confidentialised).

Geography: Data available by Population Health Area, Local Government Area, Primary Health Network, Quintile of socioeconomic disadvantage of area and Quintiles within PHNs, and Remoteness Area

Numerator: Renters receiving assistance from the Department of Social Services at June 2022

Denominator: All occupied private dwellings (2021 Census: 2021 as dwellings data not available other than for Census years)

Detail of analysis: Per cent

Source: Compiled by PHIDU based on data from the Department of Social Services, June 2022; and Australian Bureau of Statistics Census: Dwellings, 2021.