Research Insights / Breaking Down Barriers Rapid Analysis - Breaking Down Barriers Community Profiles

Each Community Profile has three distinct sections: key characteristics of the region and how they compare to the rest of the state and the rest of Australia; differences between communities in the region; and trends in key socio-economic indicators since 2006. [...] We also include community-level poverty rates for three definitions of poverty: households with incomes below 25 percent of the median, households with incomes between 25 and 50 percent of the median, and households with incomes between 50 and 60 percent of the median. [...] We rank the communities based on their overall community-level poverty rate for a given year into groups that contain the top 20 percent of communities that have the highest poverty rates, and the bottom 20 percent of communities that have the lowest poverty rates. [...] A high proportion of communities (68 percent) remain in the group with the highest poverty rates (315 communities, as depicted by the red band) between 2011 and 2016.6 60 percent of communities in the group with the highest poverty rates (280 communities) in 2021 have been in the top 20 percent of high poverty communities since 2011. [...] The top most quintile captures the top 20 percent of communities with the highest poverty rates while the bottom quintile captures the bottom 20 percent of communities with the lowest poverty rates.