We spend more on alcohol than we’ll admit, less on electricity and gas combined than we think.
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The Australian Bureau of Statistics is doing what it can to push back against lobby groups’ over-inflated claims of job creation — but it can’t stop people misusing its figures.
Businesses won’t employ more people unless they are prepared to invest. Figures out on Thursday suggest they are.
With the end of JobKeeper come changes that will force more people to search for work.
This government has known more about the granular detail of the crisis than any government in any crisis before it.
Economic activity has returned to almost what it was before the crisis, but to nowhere near were it would have been were it not for the crisis.
New data from the ABS shows how people adjusted their consumption patterns and behaviours during the early COVID-19 restrictions — and how some lifestyle changes have remained since then.
Australian Bureau of Statistics figures suggest there have been more than 800 ‘excess deaths’ in Australia in January-March 2020, relative to the average, but only 103 confirmed COVID-19 deaths so far.
Even in places that are now COVID-free spending remains subdued, and different.
The best case scenario sees a short-term recovery to the depths of the 1980s and 1990s recessions.
Incomes climbed as we snapped our wallets shut in the March quarter. The June quarter will be much, much worse.
Far too much hangs on whether Australia is “technically” in a recession. It might be skewing the design of our coronavirus support measures.
Women have suffered much more than men. Many who were employed in March have withdrawn from the labour force and so aren’t counted as unemployed.
The ABS is providing near real-time data like never before. It’s labour force survey remains the most authorative way of tracking the labour market.
Crime rates are down, but they were decreasing while imprisonment rates were increasing, so that doesn’t really explain lower numbers in our prisons.
The Institute for Health and Welfare issued an “errata” to correct statements about inequality that were perfectly correct.
Households are buying no more than they were a year ago, and the wage share of national income is the lowest since 1964.
Australia is becoming more like the United States. Increasingly, we invest overseas. Our domestic economy is weak.
Freedom of Information documents show the Bureau of Statistics spent a good deal of effort toning down news of rising inequality. The Productivity Commission seems to have been at it too.
Investments only makes sense if there are markets for the things those investments will produce. It isn’t clear that there are.
Top contributors
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Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
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Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
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Professor of Economics, The University of Melbourne
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Professorial Fellow and Deputy Director (Research), HILDA Survey, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne
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Professor of Economics, UNSW
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Emeritus Professor, Department of Political Economy, University of Sydney
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Professor of Economics, University of Canberra
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Visiting Senior Fellow in History, UNSW
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Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
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Professor of Economics and Public Policy, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University
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Associate Professor, Centre for Social Research and Methods, Director, Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), Australian National University
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Associate Professor, Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre, Curtin University
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Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society and NATSEM, University of Canberra
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Senior Lecturer, UNSW Law School; Director, Referendums Project, Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, UNSW
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Professor, Department of Economics, The University of Melbourne
