Projecting Australia’s population growth is hard. The Federal Government’s best attempt to peer over the horizon, is the regular Intergenerational Report (IGR). The 2002 IGR projected Australia’s population would be 25.8 million in 2042. The 2015 IGR projected we would have 39.7 million people by 2055.
The Federal Budget forecasts real wages to go backwards over the next two years. But that wouldn’t be the case if the rate of compulsory super contributions wasn' increasing.
read more The Budget would be forecasting rising real wages if it weren’t for compulsory super
The Government's tax plan keeps changing, and it can be hard to keep up. Here is everything you need to know before tomorrow's budget, in the one place.
read more Keeping up with the Lamingtons: your Budget 2021 tax guide
A key feature of next week’s ‘women-friendly’ federal Budget will be a new policy to make childcare cheaper and boost women’s workforce participation. But the devil will be in the detail. This article explains how the new policy will work, what it actually means for families and the economy, and how it compares to Labor’s policy. What is the new policy?
The Treasurer has said he intends to prioritise the economic recovery over reducing deficits. New analysis by the PBO suggests this is wise.
read more Good economic management doesn’t require a surplus
The increasingly strident and wide-spread criticism of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout is a problem of the Commonwealth Government’s own making. It is time for the Commonwealth Government to level with Australians, so we can better understand what the plan is and whether everything really is going to plan.
Cutting unemployment benefits by $50 a week will take about $5 billion out of the economy in the coming year. That's not good news for jobs.
read more Why the JobSeeker ‘rise’ could actually cost 40,000 Australians their jobs
The Morrison Government today finally announced an increase in the permanent rate of JobSeeker. But still unemployed Australians are being asked to live well below the poverty line.
High childcare costs continue to hurt families. Affordable childcare could boost workforce participation and help the COVID recovery.
read more New data a reminder that high childcare costs continue to bite in Australia
Here’s a useful chart for people trying to keep trace of the ’stubborn tail’ of COVID-19 cases.