Business owner claims $100,000 is the new ‘poverty line’ for Australian families amid soaring living costs: ‘You have to live in a car’

DAILYMAIL.COM • 1h ago

By SARAH BROOKES – SENIOR REPORTER, AUSTRALIA 01:45 21 Oct 2026, updated 01:48 21 Oct 2026

A businessman has claimed $100,000 a year is the new poverty line for Australian families, arguing soaring housing and household costs have made a six-figure income insufficient to raise two children.

The claim was made by an unnamed real estate agency owner during an interview with Brisbane-based tax and business advisor Lawrence Petruzzelli on Monday.

‘$100,000 a year now in Australia is literally the poverty line,’ the man told Mr Petruzzelli.

‘If you earn $100,000, you take away your tax so you are left with around $80,000. Then, if you’re renting a house in a decent area, you’re going to be spending at least $800 [per week]. That’s the minimum.

‘$40,000 of it is going straight to rent. Then you’ve got the cost of food, the cost of petrol, everything else, rego, insurance.

‘By the time you’re finished and you’ve got two kids… $40,000 just to support that family, apart from the rent, is not going to go anywhere. So you literally have to live in a car.’

The business owner said most families need two incomes just to survive, which left less time for parents to spend with their children.

‘Australia now, the economic environment is very, very toxic for families. I don’t think it’s very good anymore,’ he said.

‘It’s not the same Australia through the 80s and 90s and early 2000s. I think after 2006 till now, the last 20 years, there’s been a very slow decline.

‘You can’t blame everything on the current government, but they’ve definitely made it a lot worse.’

The claims divided Australians, with some arguing $100,000 was barely enough to support a family. Others said describing a six-figure salary as poverty was an insult to those surviving on far less.

‘I am so grateful that I’m in my mid 30s, already had children and already have a mortgage because there is no way I could be starting from scratch now in this economy especially if they think you need $100,000 a year because I don’t make anywhere near that,’ one commenter said.

Another added: ‘He’s not wrong. The problem is the cost of housing. Between 2006 and now the price of apartments and houses has gone through the roof.’

But some branded the claims ‘ridiculous’, with one user stating that $100,000 ‘is not poverty’.

‘If you can’t live on that, you’re not living within your means. Ridiculous. I’m on $83,000 before tax and pay my way myself. It’s very tough, but I’m not in poverty,’ they said.

A fourth person added: ‘Man, I’d love to be earning $100,000. If he thinks that’s below the poverty line, where does that leave all of us earning less than that? Single income below $70,000, two kids. Does that mean I am in the gutter?’

Mr Petruzzelli said he agreed with the business owner’s view, arguing a family with children now needs to earn at least $300,000 to enjoy a good standard of living.

He said costs had increased ‘a lot faster’ than wages and bracket creep meant Australians were paying more tax and getting less with their money.

‘If you’re on a single income, you’re paying about $22,000 of tax versus if you had dual incomes (of $50,000 each), you’re only actually paying half of that,’ he told news.com.au.

‘By the time you have kids in the picture and everything else, car, rego, insurance and all that, there’s not much money left over.’

While there is no official poverty line in Australia, ACOSS/University of New South Wales research from 2025 gave an estimate on what the metric could be.

It worked out to $584 a week (approximately $30,368 per year) for a single adult and $1,226 a week (about $63,752 per annum) for a couple with two children.

The report found more than one in seven people were living below the poverty line after taking housing costs into account.

That equated to 3.7 million people, including 757,000 children, although the figures were based on data from 2022-23.

The debate comes as a new report released on Wednesday paints a bleak picture of Australian families struggling to afford everyday essentials.

The Price of Survival report by the Consumer Action Law Centre examined data and insights from financial counsellors working on the National Debt Helpline in Victoria and Queensland.

Chief executive Stephanie Tonkin said people are being forced to use credit as a ‘survival tool’ to cover the basics.

‘Our financial counsellors are hearing from people stretched beyond their limits, with rising interest rates making mortgage payments their chief concern,’ she said.

‘Since 2020 working households paying a mortgage have seen their income go up 20 per cent, while living costs have risen more than 33 per cent. No wonder people are feeling stressed.’

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