https://theconversation.com/this-is-the-weakest-economy-outside-of-a-recession-h...GDP per capita has been falling for six consecutive quarters.
This means this measure of living standards has been falling for 18 months –
a record since the Bureau of Statistics began publishing GDP per capita in the early 1970s.
This is the weakest economy outside of a recession. Here’s what the GDP figures show
Published: September 4, 2024 4.06pm AEST
The latest national accounts show the Australian economy is struggling. It’s what you would expect after the sharpest series of interest rate rises on record, and is more or less what the Reserve Bank was trying to achieve to bring down inflation.
Australia’s gross domestic product grew just 0.2% in the three months to June, after growing 0.2% in the previous three months (upgraded from an earlier estimate of 0.1%) and 0.2% the three months before that.
So low is the run of low growth that the economy grew just 1% over the year to June. That’s the lowest annual growth outside of a recession since the mid-1980s.
We are not in recession as commonly defined: two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Nor are we in the broader definition of a recession favoured by the Reserve Bank, one accompanied by a significant increase in unemployment.
That is actually one of the positives at present – unemployment remains low. Nevertheless, it feels like a recession for many Australians.
Were it not for population growth, GDP would be going backwards.
Population growth has been keeping the economy afloat.
Australians who oppose immigration might want to reflect on whether they would prefer a recession.Public sector spending has also been shoring up the economy. It contributed 0.4 percentage points to the quarterly economic growth figure of 0.2%, meaning that without it the economy would have also gone backwards.
In the words of Treasurer Jim Chalmers at the national accounts press conference:
Forum
Pages: 1 
