The 200,000 Australians with a disability living on Newstart payments - after being kicked off the higher level of welfare payment through the Coalition government's reforms - are struggling to make ends meet, a new report says.

Australian households with an adult member who has a disability spend an average $107 a week more on basics such as transport and healthcare, the report by the University of Canberrra's National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling said.

Australian households with an adult member who has a disability spend an average $107 a week more on basics. Credit:Gabriele Charotte

To close the gap in household income to provide the same standard of living as households without disability, families receiving the disability support pension would need $183 more per week on average, the researchers found.

Halving this gap would cost the government an extra $3.1 billion a year, it found.