Budgeting for Laura, a single mother of four, often means deciding between buying enough food or paying her electricity bill on time.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome weeks we\u2019re good, some weeks we\u2019re down and I have to go into the community and ask for vouchers,\u201d she says. The down weeks have been happening more since the pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cost of living has gone up dramatically,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy, and it\u2019s getting crazier \u2026 it\u2019s continuous every year. Everything is going up and up and up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Research from The Smith Family released on Thursday found nine in 10 families are worried about affording back-to-school essentials as inflation continues to bite.<\/p>\n
The annual survey interviewed more than 1,100 lower-income parents and carers whose children are supported by The Smith Family.<\/p>\n
It was the third consecutive year<\/a> more than 80% of families surveyed said they couldn\u2019t afford school items, echoing Curtin University\u2019s child poverty report<\/a>, released late last year, which found an additional 102,000 children fell into poverty during and after the Covid period between 2020 and 2023.<\/p>\n Based on population change and the impact of rising rental costs, it projected the national child poverty rate had increased from 15% in 2023 to 15.6% in 2025.<\/p>\n Laura says, \u2018some weeks we\u2019re good, some weeks we\u2019re down and I have to go into the community and ask for vouchers\u2019. Photograph: Jamila Filippone<\/p>\n \u201cShould this trend continue, we risk seeing over one million children living in poverty in Australia in the next year or so,\u201d the report found.<\/p>\n The Smith Family\u2019s CEO, Doug Taylor, says the one in six children in Australia now growing up in poverty risk a detrimental flow-on effect for their education.<\/p>\n \u201cResearch tells us that by Year 9 a student who experiences disadvantage can be four to five years behind their peers in literacy and numeracy,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n