Every three months the Bureau of Statistics releases the lesser-known cousin of the consumer price index. It’s called the Wage Price Index (WPI) and it records changes in the overall level of wages, in the same way the price index records changes in the overall level of consumer prices.
Rarely does it generate headlines, but coming three days before an election and showing the worst performance ever compared with the consumer price index, it has provided concrete evidence that the buying power of wages is shrinking.
