West Australians on six-figure salaries are starting to feel the impact of cost of living and housing pressures, according to a new report from the Financial Wellbeing Collective. As financial hardship creeps into that cohort, it means women, single-income households and government benefit recipients are falling further and further behind.
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00:00Kylie Wilson is a single mum of three who, until recently, was able to manage her finances quite well.
00:09It's been an interesting road going from having a regular job and bills that are in order to not being able to buy food.
00:18Her life became a series of choices.
00:21Because we need to find money to pay for other things, then looking at braces is something that I haven't even considered.
00:29Ms Wilson is among a growing number of West Australians dealing with financial hardship.
00:34What we're seeing is that women, single parents and those on government benefits particularly are struggling,
00:41but we're also seeing a new emergence of families who are on double incomes.
00:46The Financial Wellbeing Collective's latest report includes data from 29,000 West Australians
00:52and found cost of living, housing stress and inadequate income to be the main drivers.
00:58The numbers are getting worse and I don't think this is something that's going to go away
01:02unless we have some intervention from both government and organisations really stepping up to support the community.
01:08But help is out there for those who ask, like Ms Wilson,
01:11who says she hit rock bottom when she couldn't afford a cake to celebrate her birthday with her children.
01:17I had a bit of a meltdown on the phone to one of the government agencies
01:21and they said we're going to refer you to a social worker and the social worker referred me to Anglicare
01:26and that was the beginning of finding all the services that are available.
01:30We need to be brave and bold and share our conversations because we're all making tough choices.
01:36Choices the collective says are only likely to get harder and more widespread.