first time in two years that real wages declined<\/a>.<\/p>\nIt comes as the Reserve Bank of Australia warned that real wages growth will not recover until mid-2027 while inflation is expected to peak at about 4.2 per cent this year.<\/p>\n
Deputy Opposition Leader Jane Hume said Australians have been under consistent price pressures in recent years that have crippled living standards.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people feel that they can’t put as much in the supermarket trolley or that everything is costing more. Whether it’s their electricity bills or their grocery bills or their housing costs. Whatever it might be, there’s a good reason for that,\u201d Ms Hume told Sky News.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they’re feeling poorer, it’s because they are poorer. Real wages have gone backwards under Labor.<\/p>\n
\u201cJim Chalmers can deny that all he likes, but it simply isn’t true.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Taylor stressed the Opposition\u2019s top priority was tackling inflation\u2019s resurgence as the RBA had been forced to lift the cash rate to combat price rises.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur wages are not going up as fast\u00a0as prices. That means our pay\u00a0packets – your pay packets of\u00a0hardworking Australians – can buy\u00a0less,\u201d the Opposition Leader told reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s real wages going\u00a0backwards – when what’s in your bank\u00a0account can buy less. That’s exactly\u00a0what’s happening under this failed\u00a0government.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Treasurer told us\u00a0that he’d beaten inflation. Well,\u00a0inflation has beaten him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Chalmers had repeatedly noted real wages were growing under the Albanese government and were \u201cgoing backwards\u201d at the time of the 2022 election.<\/p>\n
Even after the latest wage price index was published, the Treasurer continued to boast that \u201cthe story of (Labor\u2019s) time in office has been real wages growth\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve seen annual real wages growth for two years now, but with the inflation number coming in higher than we would like, in the December quarter, obviously, this has played out in the calculation of real wages,\u201d he told reporters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson also attacked Mr Chalmers\u2019 \u201cdenial\u201d over inflation which has forced households to tighten their budgets.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government has a very bad track record of making sure they\u2019re keeping inflation down,” Mr Wilson told reporters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“They said the economy had turned the corner. It clearly has not.<\/p>\n
\u201cJim Chalmers needs to end his denial about what\u2019s driving inflation and eating into the incomes and household savings of Australian families.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australians are getting \u201cpoorer\u201d under the Albanese government as Treasurer Jim Chalmers has remained in \u201cdenial\u201d over real…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164,5465,5626,74731,42086,3324,47739,47714,50850,4848],"class_list":{"0":"post-489576","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-inflation","13":"tag-interest-rates","14":"tag-jane-hume","15":"tag-jim-chalmers","16":"tag-productivity","17":"tag-real-wages","18":"tag-sky-news","19":"tag-treasurer-jim-chalmers","20":"tag-wages"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}