this increase coincided with the lowest income groups making income gains that led to a reduction in relative poverty figure spending on incometested housing and utility supports to families with incomes below subsistence level amounted to only of gdp a fraction of all spending on housing supports see above while spending on support to the unemployed was even lower in although such support went up in chapter the limited spending on family benefits and the poor workingage population more generally is reflected in relatively higher poverty rates among children and young people social pensions and social pension supplements that can also be paid to for example the disabled are discussed in chapter comprehensive data on other social assistance supports to the workingage population across the regions are not available but available evidence suggests that such spending is not high either