Real wages are barely rising

Wednesday, 22 February 2017

Today’s wage price data, released by the ABS, revealed that annual wages growth fell to the slowest pace on record (1997) in the December quarter, clocking it at just 1.87% (trend) over the year:

At least the news was better when adjusted for underlying (core) inflation, with annual wages growth rising 0.3% in the year to December in trend terms, courtesy of historically weak inflation:

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About the author

Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.