Aussies in world's list of poorest

AUSTRALIA'S retirees are the fourth poorest in the developed world, a report card on poverty has found.

Aussies in world's list of poorest

AUSTRALIA'S retirees are the fourth poorest in the developed world, a report card on poverty has found.

And we have the poorest unemployed people of any developed nation.

The Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development has found that half our single retirees are living in poverty, defined as less than 50 per cent of average earnings. And 27 per cent of all our retirees are living in poverty.

The number of single pensioners in poverty has risen by 4.8 per cent in the last decade, the report found.

Families and Community Services Minister Jenny Macklin said the pensioner poverty rate was "shameful" and underlined 12 years of neglect by the former Howard government.

"This is a searing indictment of the Opposition's record in government on older Australian," Ms Macklin said.

National Seniors chief Michael O'Neill said the report confirmed what older Australians already knew.

"The single pension is inadequate and needs to be increased to two thirds the rate of the couple pension," he said.

But the report shows our unemployed are doing it even tougher than pensioners -- being rated as the poorest in any developed nation.

Sydney's Welfare Rights Centre policy officer Gerard Thomas said this was a sobering message with the number of unemployed people tipped to rise by 200,000 due to the economic turmoil.

"The Government has recognised that pensioners are doing it tough but they appear to have blinkers on when it comes to understanding the real situation that unemployed people find themselves in," he said.

The Rudd Government has moved to boost pension incomes this year, introducing a $500 allowance that is paid quarterly and raising the telephone allowance to $132 a year.

Last week it announced a one-off $1400 lump sum pre-Christmas bonus for single pensioners and $2100 for couples to boost consumer spending.

It also has an inquiry under way into raising the rate of the single pension currently set at $281 a week.

The unemployed have $50 a week less to live off than aged pensioners and they were left out of the Government's recent economic rescue package.