Pay. Prices.
Purchasing power.

Wage rates and purchasing power

Is pay keeping up with prices?

A bigger pay packet can still buy less. Compare the change in wage rates with the change in consumer prices, then see the result after inflation. This comparison uses original WPI and CPI: a fully seasonally adjusted wage-and-price comparison is not available in this source edition.

Over that year, real wage rates were 0.7% lower. This measures wage rates for a fixed mix of jobs. It does not track an individual’s pay, hours, tax or household spending.

Loading the matched quarterly comparison…

Original quarterly series on both sides. All start at 100 in your selected quarter; the axis starts at zero. All Data shows the full matched history. Annual changes use the preceding year even when it falls before your selected start; the first four matched quarters have no annual comparison. Missing values are not estimated.

Derived by OD Engine from the published ABS WPI and CPI editions; this is not an ABS-published real-wage series. The result is (wage-rate change factor ÷ price-change factor) − 1. Subtracting growth percentages is an approximation. The CPI basket does not describe every household’s cost of living. Values are rounded for display.

How much have pay rates changed?

Follow wage rates for a broadly fixed mix of jobs. This series covers total hourly rates of pay excluding bonuses, across all industries and the private and public sectors. It does not follow any one person's earnings.

Loading the selected wage-rate history.

Seasonally adjusted Wage Price Index, Australia. The chart starts at zero. The selected first quarter is rebased to 100 for comparison; this is our calculation from published index levels, not the ABS reference base. Published growth rates may differ slightly from calculations using rounded index levels.

A longer view of average earnings.

Explore what average weekly earnings could buy, with history back to August 1981. Choose the earlier history below. These averages reflect pay, hours and the mix of employees; they describe a different question from the fixed-job wage rates above.

Two histories, kept separate. ABS changed the survey basis around 1994. Choose either period; growth comparisons stay within it. The modern period starts in November 1994. The earlier period runs from August 1981 to May 1994.

Loading the published earnings history…

Dashed brown: average earnings before inflation. Dotted grey: consumer prices. Solid green: average earnings after inflation.

Original earnings and original quarterly CPI. Quarterly CPI approximates prices in the earnings reference month. Annual change compares the same reference month a year earlier where available. The cumulative chart starts at 100. No estimate is made for missing survey dates.

Source: ABS Average Weekly Earnings, March quarter 1984 revised national history and May 2009 archived original series; modern AWE May 2026 edition; original quarterly CPI June quarter 2026 edition. ABS CC BY 4.0. Calculations by OD and The Economic Picture. Earlier figures retain their published vintage. Historical collection was quarterly; the modern view uses published May/November observations, and collection became six-monthly in 2012. ABS methodology and survey changes.