The Conversation · Data Journalism · Economics & Society
Australia built its identity on the promise of a “fair go.” But as rents spiral, groceries bite, and wages lag, that promise is fraying - and it’s not fraying evenly. This data story traces the fault lines of the cost-of-living crisis: who is being squeezed, how hard, and where in the country the pain is most acute.
Wages are losing the race against rents and prices
Index of wage growth, general inflation, and rental inflation (Q1 2019 = 100)
Source: ABS 6345.0 Wage Price Index; ABS 6401.0 Consumer Price Index, Australia. All series indexed to Q1 2019 = 100. Shaded region indicates COVID-19 period.
By late 2024, rents had risen 31% since early 2019 - while wages grew just 22% and general prices 25%. The COVID years briefly paused rental growth as vacancy rates rose, but the rebound was swift and severe. Real wages - what a dollar of pay actually buys, have declined in purchasing power since 2022.
Housing isn’t the only pain point — insurance and food are surging too
Annual change in CPI by expenditure group, 2020–2024 (%)
Source: ABS 6401.0 Consumer Price Index, Table 7 — CPI by Expenditure Group, annual % change to December quarter each year.
The 2022–23 inflation surge was broad-based, but not all categories have eased equally. Transport costs are falling; housing and insurance are not. This matters because low-income households spend a disproportionately larger share of their budget on both rent and food - they have little room to cut back, and even less ability to shop around. The result is a hidden multiplier effect: the same inflation rate hits harder the less you earn.
Rental stress is overwhelming — but almost exclusively for the lowest earners
Share of renter households paying more than 30% of income on rent, by income quintile (%)
Source: ABS 4130.0 Housing Occupancy and Costs; ABS Survey of Income and Housing 2019–20, 2021–22, 2022–23. Rental stress defined as spending >30% of gross household income on rent.
Three in four of Australia’s lowest-earning renters are now in housing stress — up from two in three before the pandemic. For the second-lowest quintile, nearly half are stressed. By contrast, fewer than 1 in 20 of the top earners face the same burden. This is not a shared crisis: it is concentrated, and it is deepening.
The geographic lottery: where you live determines how squeezed you are
Median weekly rent as a share of median weekly household income, by state/territory (2024)
Source: CoreLogic Rental Review Q4 2024; ABS 6523.0 Household Income and Wealth, 2021–22. Bubble size and colour indicate rental affordability ratio. Stress threshold = 30%.
New South Wales is the toughest market: Sydney’s median rent now absorbs 32% of the median household’s weekly income above the internationally recognised stress threshold of 30%. Tasmania follows closely, with lower incomes magnifying the effect even of relatively modest rents. Western Australia and the ACT, despite high rents, are buffered by the highest median incomes.
The affordability gap is widest where rents rose fastest
Cumulative growth in median rent vs. median household income by state, 2019–2024 (%)
Source: CoreLogic Rental Review Q4 2024; ABS 6523.0 Household Income and Wealth 2021–22 (income growth interpolated to 2024). “pp” = percentage points gap between rent and income growth.
Western Australia has seen the starkest divergence: rents have grown 51% since 2019 while incomes grew just 26% — a 25 percentage-point gap driven by the resources boom attracting workers and pushing housing demand far ahead of supply. Queensland follows, where interstate migration turbocharged the rental market. Even Victoria, with slower rent growth — still shows a meaningful gap that is widening low-income renters’ path to stability.
The cost-of-living crisis is real, but it is not randomly distributed. It falls most heavily on those who rent rather than own, who earn less rather than more, and who live in markets where supply has failed to keep pace with demand. Taken together, these five charts tell a story that goes beyond headline inflation figures: a structural divergence between the cost of housing and the incomes available to meet it, playing out differently across states, income groups, and time. A full recovery in real wages is years away on current trajectories. Without meaningful intervention — in rental supply, in income support, or both — the fair go is becoming a privilege of the already comfortable.
Data visualisations were created using R (v4.x) with the
plotly, dplyr, and tidyr
packages. Claude AI (Anthropic)
was used to assist with code debugging and narrative drafting. Final
content, analytical framing, and all editorial decisions are my own.
Claude AI: Anthropic. (2024). Claude (Version 3.5) [Large language model]. https://www.anthropic.com
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2024a). 6345.0 Wage Price Index, Australia, December 2024. ABS. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/wage-price-index-australia
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2024b). 6401.0 Consumer Price Index, Australia, December 2024. ABS. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/consumer-price-index-australia
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2023a). 4130.0 Housing Occupancy and Costs, 2021–22. ABS. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/housing/housing-occupancy-and-costs
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2023b). 6523.0 Household Income and Wealth, Australia, 2021–22. ABS. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/finance/household-income-and-wealth-australia
CoreLogic. (2024). Rental Review: Q4 2024. CoreLogic Australia. https://www.corelogic.com.au/news-research/reports/rental-review
SGS Economics & Planning. (2024). Rental Affordability Index 2024. SGS Economics & Planning. https://sgsep.com.au/publications/insights/rental-affordability-index-2024