The Productivity Commission (PC) has released a new paper, entitled Vulnerable Private Renters: Evidence and Options, which shows that Australia’s low-income renters have been squeezed hard as public housing supply has failed to keep pace with strong population growth:
Australia’s private rental market works well for most people, most of the time. The market has adapted to a fast-growing population as well as to several structural shifts — stemming from the coincident rise in house prices as well as to the declining availability of social housing.
These forces have culminated in an increase in the share of the population renting privately since the mid-1980s — a reversal of the long run decline in this share since World War II.
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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.
