Abstract
The Social Policy Research Centre (SPRC) has been asked to prepare a report by the Legal and Research Division of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) on the incomes required by Australian working families to meet their needs in 2003. The research will inform the ACTU’s Submission to the forthcoming Minimum Wages Case. The research itself is based on the earlier SPRC research on budget standards, undertaken between 1995 and 1998 on commission to the (then) Department of Social Security (DSS), now the Department of Family and Community Services (FaCS).