Treasurer Jim Chalmers delivered the Albanese government's second budget earlier this week, balancing cost-of-living relief against the need to rein in inflation.
The treasurer used his budget speech to spruik the government's achievements so far, and make the case for a range of measures to ease the cost pressures on households.
But in doing so, did he get his facts straight? RMIT ABC Fact Check takes a look at some of the claims he made.
Are real wages growing?
Labor hit the hustings during the 2022 election with a promise to get wages moving again. In his speech, Mr Chalmers claimed the government was delivering on this promise.
"[Wages are] now growing at their fastest rate since 2012," he said.
Certainly, the budget forecasts an uptick in nominal wage growth over the forward estimates — including a 3.75 per cent rise during the current financial year, followed by a further 4 per cent increase in 2023-24.
And the Australian Bureau of Statistics' wage price index (seasonally adjusted) shows that 2012 was indeed the last time wages experienced similar growth, when it recorded a 3.8 per cent increase.
However, the story changes when rising living costs are taken into account, with the budget flagging inflation of 6 per cent in 2022-23 and 3.25 per cent in 2023-24.
That would mean real wages — or wages after inflation — will have fallen by around 2.25 per cent this year and, if the forecasts hold, would increase by a more modest 0.75 per in 2023-24.
This isn't so different to the level of wages growth seen under the Coalition before the pandemic (for example, in 2015, 2016 and 2019), which led to accusations from Labor that wages were "flatlining".
And while Treasury's forecasts have a history of being wrong, the budget suggests real wages will increase by 0.75 per cent per year, on average, over the four-year forward estimates.
The budget also estimates that Labor's energy policies (including $1.5 billion over two years for short-term bill relief) will shave 0.75 of a percentage point off inflation in 2023-24 — equal to the predicted real wages growth for that year.
Jobs and unemployment
Mr Chalmers also used the bureau's Labor Force Survey to talk up the government's credentials in the jobs market.
The treasurer crowed about the state of the workforce, saying he was "proud that in our first year in office, 339,000 new jobs have been created".
A look at the seasonally adjusted figures for employment in the Australian Bureau of Statistics' Labour Force Survey shows that the number of employed people in May 2022, when Labor came to office, was 13,545,800, which rose to 13,884,400 in March 2023 (the latest month for which data is available).
That's a difference of 338,600, which accords with Mr Chalmers's figure. Importantly, this is a net figure, which accounts for all jobs lost and created during the period, so the actual number of jobs created is likely to be higher.
But can the government take credit?
The last time Fact Check looked at this issue, in 2016, experts said that it was difficult to pinpoint exactly how many jobs were created by an individual government, and that even policies of previous governments could play a role in job creation over time.
They pointed out that governments of all persuasions were quick to take credit when the economy added jobs, but often pointed to external factors when the economy shed jobs.
"No one can really say we created X number of jobs, but they all do," Mark Wooden, Professorial Research Fellow and Director of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, told Fact Check at the time.
"It's bordering on laughable, but the reason it's not laughable is that they say it all the time and everyone accepts it and it really doesn't raise any eyebrows."
So, the treasurer can indeed be "proud" of the numbers of new jobs the economy has generated, but the government's role is uncertain.
Mr Chalmers also claimed throughout his budget address that unemployment was at "historic lows".
Certainly, at 3.5 per cent, the unemployment rate for March 2023 is lower than at any time since 1978 when the Australian Bureau of Statistics began publishing monthly labour force figures.
However, the ABS holds data on unemployment dating back to 1966. While a number of methodological changes were made between then and 1978, the data shows the jobless rate was below 2 per cent in the 1960s, and remained below 3 per cent until the mid-1970s.
Garry Barrett, the head of the University of Sydney's School of Economics told Fact Check in an email that the Labour Force Survey "underwent a very substantial revision in Feb 1978, so caution needs to be exercised when comparing pre- and post-1978 labour market statistics".
"The official unemployment rate was lower in the 1960s and early 1970s — though the stats are not fully comparable," he said.
Professor Barrett called the current jobs market "the most buoyant it has been since the mid-1970s", and "the lowest unemployment experience of two generations of workers".
Jeff Borland, the Truby Williams Professor of Economics at the University of Melbourne, told Fact Check that even with the methodological differences, "I think that all economists would accept that … the rate of unemployment in Australia was lower in the ‘60s and early ‘70s than 3.5 per cent".
But he said that, colloquially, it would be "quite OK" to describe the current rate as "historically low", given that it's the lowest it has been this century and the last time it was this low was half a century ago.
"Judged against history, it is at a low level," he said.
Raising rent assistance
An increase in Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) in the budget is set to deliver some relief for renters currently receiving welfare payments.
The boost comes amid reports of falling vacancy rates and substantial rent hikes across the country, as well as a threat from the Greens to block the government's Housing Australia Future Fund unless it goes further in addressing the nation's rental crisis.
Mr Chalmers said the government was boosting Rent Assistance by up to 15 per cent — "the largest increase in more than 30 years".
"For a single CRA recipient with no dependents, not sharing and receiving the maximum amount of rent assistance, it means their payment can increase from $157.20 a fortnight to $180.80," he said.
A joint press release with Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth explained that the new rates would start from September 20, "subject to the passage of legislation" and would dovetail with the regular indexation of eligible payment rates.
Department of Social Services data dating back to 1990, as well as previous research conducted by Fact Check on the history of increases to welfare payments, aligns with Mr Chalmers's claim.
Like other welfare payments, Rent Assistance is increased automatically twice a year in order to keep pace with inflation, a process known as indexation.
On occasions, governments have also delivered a real increase in payments; that is, increases above inflation.
Rent Assistance has been subject to a real increase three times over the last 30 years, but never by as much as 15 per cent.
In 1993, for example, the payment was increased by $4 over and above any indexation adjustment, and was again raised in March 1996.
The introduction of the goods and services tax (GST) in 2000 also saw Rent Assistance boosted, initially by 7 per cent before a "mechanism for clawing back some of the increases in maximum rates" kicked in, resulting in a final increase of 5 per cent.
Are the vast majority of those receiving single parenting payments women?
During his speech, Mr Chalmers claimed that a change in eligibility rules for the single parent's payment, at a total cost of $1.9 billion over five years, would overwhelmingly benefit women.
The payment provides means-tested financial support for single parents and is currently available to those with children under the age of 8.
On Tuesday, Mr Chalmers said the threshold would be lifted to include children aged under 14, giving single parents access to the payments (which are higher than those for the alternative Jobseeker) for longer.
"Over 90 per cent of these parents are single mums; they deserve our respect and support for the incredible job they do," he said.
On this, Mr Chalmers's claim squares with the data.
As of March 2023, there were 230,520 recipients of the single parenting payment, according to a Department of Social Services spokeswoman.
Of these, 220,175 — or 96 per cent — were women.
As a result of the budget measure, an additional 57,000 people would be eligible for the payment, 91 per cent of whom were women, the spokeswoman said.
Principal researchers: David Campbell, Matt Martino, Ellen McCutchan and Sonam Thomas
Editor's note (May 11, 2023): An earlier version of this article said the four-year forecast for real wages was a average annual decrease of 0.1 per cent, rather than a rise of 0.75 per cent.
