Mortgage rates and council rates have gone up, which leads to hikes in rent. The cost of petrol is ridiculous, which then causes the cost of everything else to increase. Food is becoming scarce due to farmers not having the necessary workforce to help with harvests, which pushes the price up.
We’re all feeling the pressure of the cost-of-living crisis, with no relief in sight.
Inflation rose to a high of 6.1 per cent in June, the highest it’s been in 21 years.
We’re not alone, however. Many countries around the world are grappling with rising inflation. The USA, UK, Germany, New Zealand and Canada have all experienced higher inflation than Australia, ranging from 7.3 per cent in New Zealand to the UK’s 9.4 per cent.
In comparison, wages rose an average of 2.4 per cent during the March quarter, but a lot of hard-working Aussies didn’t get a pay rise at all this year. It’s hard to stay positive when you reaslise that, due to inflation, you’re actually earning less value than you did the year before, despite being a hard-working, faithful employee.
This then drives people towards other avenues. A different career, or perhaps no career. Why work your guts out when you could be spending more time with your family if you have savings?
This then compounds the other major issue Australia is facing, a skills and worker shortage.
All sorts of suggestions are being thrown around, from allowing children as young as 13 to work, to reducing the penalty for pensioners to work, allowing some of our aged yet skilled nurses and teachers to return to work without reducing their pension so severely.
If older people want to work then good on them, I think that’s fantastic. I just hope we’re not spiraling towards a future where our older generation have to work, just to live.
It’s the vulnerable who are feeling it the most. Beneficiaries, those earning lower-than-average wages and those with high debt levels. The only ones who seem to be winning in this situation are the banks and petroleum companies.
So who is winning because they are winning? There’s the real problem.
Amanda
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