The latest economic statistics have confirmed that Australia’s economy is barely limping along – with quarterly GDP growth of just 0.4%. One of the weakest spots in the report was consumer spending, which recorded its weakest performance since December 2008 (amidst the worst days of the Global Financial Crisis). This was despite the supposed benefit of recent Commonwealth government tax cuts in boosting disposable income and stimulating more spending.

Analysis from Dr. Jim Stanford shows that the tax cut is in fact completely invisible in the macroeconomic data.

For the last generation macroeconomic policy in Australia has been based on the assumption that unemployment must be maintained at a certain minimum level in order to restrain wages and prevent an outbreak of accelerating inflation. Now, after six years of record-low wage growth – which weakened even further in the latest ABS wage statistics – it is time for that policy to be abandoned.

This week’s pre-election Commonwealth budget will feature reductions in personal income taxes, as the Coalition government tries to overcome a disadvantage in the polls in the coming federal election. Public debate in recent weeks has been focused on the economic and social hardship caused by the unprecedented slowdown since 2013 in Australian wage growth. It is likely that the government will portray its personal tax cuts as a form of “compensation” for slower wage growth.

The ABS has released what is likely the last quarterly GDP report before a Commonwealth election expected in May. Coalition leaders were hoping a strong report would underline their standard talking points about being the best “economic managers.”  But they were badly disappointed.

In the lead-up to the 2013 federal election, then-Opposition Leader Tony Abbott made a high-profile pledge that a Coalition government, if elected, would create 1 million new jobs over the next five years. Abbott was elected (although later ousted by his own party), and total employment in Australia did indeed grow by over 1 million positions between 2013 and 2018.  Current Prime Minister Scott Morrison hopes that this success can resuscitate his party’s flagging fortunes: he has pledged, if elected, to create even more jobs (1.25 million) over the next five years.

The unprecedented insecurity of work in Australia’s economy – with the labour market buffeted by technology, globalisation, and new digital business models – has sparked big thinking about policies for addressing this insecurity and enhancing the incomes and well-being of working people. Two ideas which have generated much discussion and debate are proposals for a

The share of total economic output in Australia that is paid to workers (in the form of wages, salaries, and superannuation contributions) has been declining for decades. Workers produce more real output with each hour of labour (thanks to ongoing efficiency improvements and productivity growth), but growth in real wages has been much slower –

This week the ABS released new GDP data, covering the June quarter, which confirm the continuing structural shift away labour toward capital in the distribution of income. We have prepared a short briefing note, contrasting the strong growth in corporate profits over the past year with the stagnation of labour incomes.  Workers simply do not

Amidst increasing concerns among economists and budget forecasters about the historic stagnation of Australian wages, the latest GDP statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics have confirmed that the proportion of national economic output that is paid to workers has reached an all-time low.

New report from the Centre for Future Work ranks Prime Ministerships by 10 key economic performance indicators.

In responding to the release of the recent Productivity Commission (PC) draft report into paid parental leave, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd stated: ‘This Australian Government believes the time has come to bite the bullet on this and we intend to do so’. He did not however commit to addressing the issue before the 2009 Federal

This paper examines the relationship between recessions and the size and duration of long-term unemployment. The results should leave us in no doubt that just a few poor years of economic growth have very significant medium-term implications for long-term unemployment.