Rental stress climbs income ladder affecting persons with full-time incomes

ABC NEWS (Australia)

New research from Anglicare Australia involving 51,000 properties has found essential workers are being priced out of the rental market right across the country. Out of 850 rentals researched, only 1.7 percent were affordable for aged care workers.

Transcript

00:00What we see people doing is that they are going into rental stress and sadly we're

00:07releasing this report as part of Anti-Poverty Week. I say sadly because there's no way that

00:13a full-time firefighter or early childhood educator or construction worker, you know,

00:18we should really be talking about them in Anti-Poverty Week. These are people working

00:22full-time. But rental stress, like other signs and symptoms of poverty, are definitely climbing

00:28the income ladder. So we're seeing people spending up to 60% of their incomes. We're

00:35seeing them with very long commutes. Even though this report shows us that the regions are not

00:40immune to this, there was nowhere where it was very affordable. There was nowhere where

00:45any of those occupations could gain 10% of affordability of the properties available.

00:52We also see people living in share houses. These properties include share houses, by the

00:58way, because we're surveying single workers. And, you know, I'm not sure that a share house

01:05is quite right. If you're a firefighter or a nurse trying to do night shifts, long commutes,

01:12it's just not going to work on top of a 10-hour shift. And, you know, we also see people taking

01:18on second jobs. So I spoke to a lot of nurses who are also doing Uber Eats, driving out of

01:25two hours. So that's the kind of thing where, you know, you really think that these are professions

01:29and occupations where it should be enough. A full-time wage should be enough to afford,

01:36without worrying, without stress, be able to afford a rental.

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