The recently released Forrest Review raises the issue that current public and social housing policies trap Indigenous and other Australians in areas ‘even when there are no jobs there’. Some of the Review's proposals include charging people living in public or social housing who are capable of working between 100 per cent and 80 per cent of market rents, and giving people who move for work priority in obtaining public housing in the new location.

To consider the impact of these suggestions this article establishes the size of the issue the Review is addressing, estimating the number of households living in public or social housing who are capable of working and are living in areas (i.e. remote and very remote) with low employment rates.