The ACT low-income earners facing rental stress

Canberra has the most unaffordable rents for hospitality workers, new figures show.

And the situation is even worse for pensioners where rental affordability has been described as "alarmingly poor" in a new report from SGS Economics and Planning.

Canberra is the second least affordable city for low-income renters, behind Sydney.

A single pensioner in Canberra will face "extremely unaffordable" rent and 74 per cent of their pension would go towards rent on a one-bedroom dwelling.

The report said this situation was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic as, unlike those on JobSeeker, they did not receive an increase in their pension.

The situation is only slightly better for a pensioner couple where 52 per cent of their income would go towards rent.

A single person on JobSeeker would pay 64 per cent of their income on rent for a one-bedroom dwelling.

A single parent who works part-time and receives benefits could expect to pay 45 per cent of their income. This assumed the parent has one child under five.

Full-time hospitality workers on an annual income of $59,335 would put 37 per cent of their income towards a one-bedroom dwelling in Canberra - making rent more unaffordable than Sydney for the cohort.

Renters who pay more than 30 per cent of their income in rent are considered to be in rental stress.

While Canberra was unaffordable for low-income earner, overall rents are considered to be moderately unaffordable to acceptable for the average rental household income of $103,000.

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Canberra's high-income workforce had pushed up rents, according to the report.

"Although the average rental household income in the ACT is relatively high, incomes have been growing at a slow rate than greater Melbourne or Sydney," the report said.

"Low-income households in the ACT face particularly unaffordable rents, as rents are pushed up by the overall high-income earning workforce."

The report found that despite the increased rate of JobSeeker, rental affordability still remained extremely to severely unaffordable in metropolitan areas.

"Despite JobSeeker being a welcome boost to many low-income renters it was not enough to lift them out of rental stress," National Shelter executive officer Adrian Pisarski said.

"This shows the depth of our rental affordability problem, where even with additional support, there is not one place in Australia where a JobSeeker can rent affordably."