The December quarter national accounts was another shocker for Australian households.
According to the ABS, the real average compensation per employee fell another 0.3% in the year to December 2018 to be 4.8% lower since March 2012. It is also only 0.9% higher than December 2007:
Yesterday, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) also released real household disposable income (HDI) data, derived from the December quarter national accounts, which revealed that real per capita HDI fell by 1.2% over the year.
The below chart tracks quarterly real per capita HDI:
As you can see, quarterly real per capita HDI has fallen by 1.2% since December 2011!
Below is the same chart presented on a 4QMA basis:
Here, real per capita HDI has fallen by 0.3% since June 2012.
To add further insult to injury, the growth in real per capita HDI so far this decade remains anaemic at just 0.61% per annum, which is lower than the 1960s (2.28%), 1970s (1.84%), 1980s (0.91%), 1990s (1.31%), and 2000s (3.23%):
Just another indicator of Australia’s ‘lost decade’ meme, which MB has warned about throughout.
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