Changes in Poverty Rates During the Howard Era

Joan Rodgers, Peter Siminski and James Bishop

Economics Working Papers from School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia

Abstract: This paper considers changes in poverty rates under the Howard government. We also make three methodological contributions. We consider the statistical significance of estimated changes in poverty. We propose a decomposition technique which reconciles trends in absolute and relative poverty. We also use ‘poverty profiles’, which clearly illustrate sensitivity to alternative poverty lines. Whilst we are constrained by the period of comparable data availability (1995-96 to 2002-03), we find statistically significant decreases in absolute poverty (overall and for children) and corresponding increases in relative poverty, which are statistically significant under the most commonly used poverty line: half of median income.

Keywords: General Welfare; Measurement and Analysis of Poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I31 I32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Journal Article: Changes in Poverty Rates during the Howard Era (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uow:depec1:wp08-11

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