Many Queenslanders must choose between paying for food, rent or bills every week, a report says.
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The Queensland Council of Social Service (QCOSS) has called on the federal government to increase income support, saying their research shows the state's vulnerable households were struggling with poverty.
QCOSS said only two of their report's seven sample low-income Queensland households were able to meet a basic standard of living.
The QCOSS report analysed income and expenditure in vulnerable households in 15 regions across the state while also surveying more than 100 frontline community service staff.
"They said that the primary impact of inadequate income on a household is the inability to meet day-to-day expenses such as food, clothing, rent, energy and water," the report said.
One of the biggest headaches was housing costs, with some in regions such as the Gold Coast spending up to 46 per cent of their income on rent or mortgage payments.
"We are in a housing crisis and the increasing cost of living means that many people are making impossible choices between rent, food and paying the bills," QCOSS CEO Aimee McVeigh said.
"Our report shows that low-income households are unable to make ends meet.
"Government can put an end to poverty by lifting income support. The COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated that, when there is political will, it is possible to pull people out of poverty."
The report said employment provided no guarantees for the state's vulnerable with four of the model households "working poor" with a weekly deficit despite members having a job.
Working families - two parents on full-time and casual employment with two dependents - were one of the worst hit, ending a typical week with a deficit across the state, rising to $234 on the Sunshine Coast and $205 in Cairns, in the far north.
Of the seven households modelled, only a student working part-time had a regular weekly surplus across all of the report's 15 regions.
The other household samples used were an unemployed adult, a casually employed adult with two dependents, a senior couple, an unemployed woman not eligible for age pension and a non-resident family unable to access government social support.
The latter was another to struggle badly to make ends meet, with a weekly deficit across all 15 regions rising to $235 in Cairns and $207 on the Gold Coast.
Australian Associated Press
