Research

While the national unemployment rate might be 5.7% this average unemployment hides important variations. The Australia Institute has assessed unemployment by regional variation by federal electorate using Department of Employment data. The average unemployment rate in South Australia is 6.8%, but the unemployment rate varies significantly across the state, from 5.0% in Boothby to 10.6% in Port Adelaide.Electorate Party Unemployment rate Change in...

For the new report from the Centre for Future Work ranking Prime Ministerships by 10 key economic performance indicators, head to the CFW website - here. 

The Australia Institute has modelled the number jobs in the clean energy sector which would be created to meet the renewable energy targets proposed by political parties this election.  All parties are talking about jobs and economic opportunities in the lead up to the 2016 federal election. The report estimates the number of jobs that would be created in by the renewable energy policies of each party as at 10 June 2016.

Between 23 May and 3 June 2016The Australia Institute conducted a national opinion poll of 1437 people through Research Now, with nationally representative samples by gender, age and state or territory. The poll asked questions about voting intentions in the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as questions about the Senate voting system. Results in attachment below.Analysis Large number of people don’t understand new Senate voting sy...

Trickle-down economics  30 November 2015 - Report: Cutting the company tax rate: Why would you? Summary: ‘Trickle-down’ economics has been resurrected and renamed ‘growth dividend’ to support company tax cuts. The evidence and experience of trickle-down is that it does not create ‘jobs or growth’ as claimed, but rather drives greater inequality as well as government deficits. Media: Budget 2016: Cutting business taxes does not lead to growt...

The problems in Australia’s manufacturing sector are well-known, and many Australians have concluded that the decline in manufacturing is inevitable and universal: that high-wage countries like Australia must accept the loss of manufacturing as an economic reality.  But international statistics disprove this pessimism.  Worldwide, manufacturing is growing, not shrinking, including in many advanced high-wage countries. Australians a...

The Coalition's proposal to reduce the corporate tax rate will result in a significant loss of tax revenue and, in turn, will have a significant impact on the budget balance.The government has argued that the loss in tax revenue will be offset, in part, by the increase in economic activity that they believe will flow from the reduction in the corporate tax rate. This activity is assumed to take the form of increased investment, increased employme...

The insecure nature of work in Australia today can be illustrated through the following infographic (based on 2015 data published by the ABS). Australia has over 19 million residents of working age (which the ABS defines as anyone over 15). Of those, 12.5 million “participated” in the labour market (by working or actively seeking it). Participation has declined in recent years, in large part because of poor job prospects; that’s a turnaround from...

New research, based on US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data, shows that the proposed company tax cut would see the Australian tax system delivering billions of dollars to the US Treasury.