Lasting Impacts: The Economic Costs of Child Poverty in NSW

In 2024, 15.5% of children are living in poverty.
We can change that.

A new report from Impact Economics and Policy, commissioned by NCOSS, has found that child poverty costs NSW $60 billion every year. This includes $25 billion of direct costs to governments and the economy and $34 billion of costs related to diminished health and life expectancy due to child poverty.

This is equivalent to 7.8 per cent of Gross State Product.

Poverty during childhood can have lifelong impacts.

It undermines a child’s future educational attainment, economic productivity, physical and mental health, and safety. Child poverty also creates barriers to opportunity and access, perpetuating a cycle of disadvantage that is difficult to break without targeted interventions.

Poverty affects one in six children in NSW. In some suburbs of NSW, it can be as high as two in five children.

This report is the first time in Australia that the economic costs of child poverty have been systematically quantified.

Drawing on a range of data sources, sector insights and lived experience, this report highlights how the impacts of child poverty can reverberate throughout a child’s life and their association with significant costs in terms of government expenditure and revenue, and economic growth.