Australia’s economy might not be suffering a depression, thanks to record immigration-driven population growth. But Australian residents certainly are.
Australian real per capita household disposable income fell by 6% in 2023, one of the world’s biggest declines:
Alex Joiner, chief economist at IFM Investors, noted on Twitter (X) that “on a per capita basis, the current fall in real household spending will be the deepest and longest since at least the 1970s (excluding the pandemic period)”:
Independent economist Tarric Brooker also noted on Twitter (X) that “despite the huge LNG boom, Aussie per capita GDP has grown less in the last decade than in the 1930s, which encompassed the Great Depression and the start of World War 2”:
Brooker noted that “average per capita real GDP growth for the past decade was 0.93%”, while “average per capita real GDP growth rate for the 1930s was 1.2%”.
The next chart, which has been derived from the national accounts, shows that this decade’s annual growth in real per capita household disposable income (0.29%) is the worst in more than six decades:
No wonder the federal government and the Australian Treasury support mass immigration. It is the only thing preventing the economy from experiencing a technical recession.
Meanwhile, the living standards of Australian residents continue to slide backward at a record rate.
