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The wage price index for the December quarter from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported that real inflation-adjusted wages fell by around 0.3% in 2025 and were tracking 6% below their Covid-19 ‘bubble’ peak at around late 2011 levels:
The Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) forecasts, as laid out in its February Statement of Monetary Policy (SoMP), suggested that the RBA does not anticipate that real wages will recover over the forward estimates:
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By the June quarter of 2028, the RBA forecasts that Australia’s real wages will remain 6.4% below their mid-2020 peak at around the same level as the March quarter of 2011.
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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.