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  • Opening statement to the ACTU Price Gouging Inquiry

    The Director of the Centre for Future Work, Jim Stanford and policy director and chief economist of the Australia Institute, Greg Jericho, presented evidence at the inquiry based on their research into profit-led inflation. Below is an edited excerpt of their opening statement.

    The recent period of rising inflation has been highly unusual coming as it has after a period where in Australia, core inflation by June 2021 had not been above the Reserve Bank’s target range of 2% to 3% for more than a decade and had been below 2% for five and half years.

    Perhaps unsurprisingly, because of such a long period without rising inflation, we saw very much a default to the thinking of the 1970s and a belief that all inflation is primarily driven by demand factors that need to be limited by higher interest rates.

    This was a fundamental misunderstanding of this inflationary period. It clearly could not be driven by wages because wages at all stages over the past two years have grown on average by less than inflation, such that real wages are now 5.5% below what they were two years ago.

    Wage growth in the 12 months to June this year was just 3.6%, still well below the CPI of 6%, and far from accelerating, actually had fallen from 3.7% growth in the 12 months to March.

    Thus, the question becomes, if not wages, what?

    Our research in February this year revealed that the initial surge of inflation in Australia beginning in mid-2021 was closely associated with a surge in price pressures.

    Business profits were the dominant manifestation of that inflation. The supply shocks that occurred because of the pandemic lockdowns and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine allowed companies in some key industries (such as energy, logistics, and manufacturing) to significantly boost their profit margins, coincident with rising prices.

    Our February 2023 paper, using the decomposition method of the national accounts (as explained by Jim), concluded that since the end of 2019, 69% of unit price increases over and above the RBA’s 2.5% inflation target mid-point were attributable to increased nominal unit profit payments. Only 18% was attributable to higher nominal unit labour costs, and the rest to increases in other nominal factor payments.

    Our paper noted that the profit growth was most dramatic in the energy and resources sector. These findings were broadly consistent with the findings of earlier research by the Australia Institute, as well as with the similar decompositions of inflation reported in other countries.

    Our follow-up report in April confirmed the leading role played by profits in the energy and resource industries. It noted that products from that sector (including petrol, gas, and other fossil fuel-intensive products) were leading sources of domestic inflation in Australia. It also showed that profits in other sectors, such as wholesale trade (56%), manufacturing (38%), professional and technological services (37%) and construction (37%), had also increased as a share of non-mining GDP since the pandemic. This profit growth is not dissimilar from the 48% growth in mining profits during the same period and well in excess of the 27% increase in nominal GDP.

    This confirmed that firms across these sectors have more than simply passed on higher input costs to consumers. As American economist Isabelle Weber has argued, they amplified them.

    The release of two more quarters of national accounts since February allows us to update our figures, which find that despite recent falls in corporate profits in some sectors, higher unit profit payouts still account for over half (56%) of the cumulative increase in nominal unit prices in the Australian economy since December 2019, above and beyond what would be expected due to normal target inflation. The role of higher unit labour costs in overall unit prices has increased in recent quarters and now accounts for just over one-third (35%) of the cumulative above-target rise in prices since the pandemic.

    The influence of profits is clear when you consider that unit profit costs by June 2023 were 27% above their December 2019 levels (down from 37% above in March 2023), while unit labour costs are just 14% above December 2019 levels – pointedly just below the 15% growth in CPI.

    There have been some suggestions by the Reserve Bank and others that our research should exclude mining profits as these do not significantly influence Australian inflation. Profits in mining during this time accounted for over half of all corporate profits in Australia; obviously, if over half of corporate profits are excluded from consideration, then profits will obviously seem less important.

    We reject the argument that mining profits somehow “don’t count” – especially in regard to domestic inflation, given the critical role played by higher petrol, gas, and electricity prices in driving the initial post-pandemic surge in Australian consumer price inflation.

    Clearly, there is a strong connection between energy prices, energy industry profits, and inflation experienced by domestic consumers (not to mention inflation experienced in other sectors of the economy).

    The good news is that corporate profits have begun to moderate in the first half of this year. It is important to note the modest decline in gross operating surplus in some sectors has still left corporate profits as a share of national GDP well above pre-pandemic levels and far above longer-term post-war averages.

    Nevertheless, even the partial moderation of record corporate profits has been associated with a significant and welcome deceleration of inflation. Consumer price inflation in Australia has slowed by over half in the last nine months: from an annualised peak of 8.9% in the first quarter of 2022 (led by surging energy costs) to just 3.4% in the June quarter of 2023 (not much higher than the top of the RBA’s target range).

    Moreover, even in the later stages of this current inflation cycle, with profits stable or even falling and labour costs accelerating, it’s wrong to conclude that labour is now the ‘source’ of inflation: clearly, the rise in unit labour costs reflects efforts by workers to recoup real income losses experienced earlier in the inflationary cycle, which must still be ascribed to the initial profit-led shocks that started the whole process.

    Blaming workers now for inflation because they are pursuing higher wages to recover lost living standards is like blaming a homeowner whose house has been set on fire for using too much water to put out the flames.

    Even as it appears to be moderating, this period of inflation requires a rethink of our policy approaches.

    We have made a number of policy recommendations, including:

    • Price regulations in strategic sectors
    • Fiscal transfers (such as windfall profits taxes combined with cost-of-living transfers to vulnerable households)
    • Competition policy reforms
    • Supports for wage increases in excess of current inflation for a sustained period of time to allow the repair of recent real wage reductions.

    The biggest lesson from this period is that we need more policy tools in our inflation toolkit. Relying on monetary policy and higher interest rates only works if you think inflation is only ever produced by higher wages and strong aggregate demand.

    We know that the future is more likely than not to feature further global shocks – not the least from climate change. Policymakers and central banks need to learn from the past two years and ready themselves to treat the broader causes of inflation and protect workers and households when companies seek to use crises as an opportunity to lift prices.

    The post Opening statement to the ACTU Price Gouging Inquiry appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Going Backwards: NDIS Workforce and Gender Equality

    Hundreds of thousands of NDIS participants rely on this workforce to provide personal support and care on a daily basis.

    The NDIS workforce is large and growing, currently employing about a quarter of a million workers, mostly women. Pay, working conditions and career opportunities in the disability support workforce are critical to the future of women’s economic equality in Australia.

    It is a decade since the NDIS was first piloted, yet the promise for workers, that the scheme would translate into ‘greater pay, … better working conditions … (and) enough resources to do the job properly’ has not been fulfilled.

    Rather, conditions of work in the NDIS are poor and deteriorating.

    The design of the NDIS, with its market basis and poor and uneven regulatory oversight, has undermined fair pay and working conditions for disability support workers and is threatening workforce stability.

    This briefing paper reviews this evidence and argues for significant reforms to address urgent problems arising from these design flaws and regulatory failures.

    The post Going Backwards appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Profit-Price Inflation: Theory, International Evidence, Policy

    The report, compiled by Dr Jim Stanford (Economist and Director of the Centre for Future Work), with contributions from several other economists at the Centre and the Australia Institute, confirms that higher corporate profits still account for most of the rise in economy-wide unit prices in Australia since the pandemic struck.

    The good news is that corporate profits have begun to moderate, as global supply chains are repaired, shortages of strategic commodities dissipate, and consumer purchasing patterns adjust after the pandemic. This has occurred alongside a reduction in inflation of over half since early 2022 (falling from a peak of 8.9% annualised in early 2022 to 3.4% by June 2023). This further confirms the close correlation between corporate profits and inflation — but both profits and inflation need to fall further.

    The report also reviews the methodology and findings of over 35 international studies confirming the existence of profit-led inflation across many industrial countries (including Australia). The methodology and findings of these studies are very similar to that utilised by the Australian Institute and the Centre for Future Work in previous research on profit-led inflation.

    The international research includes reports from numerous established institutions (including the OECD, the IMF, the Bank for International Settlements, many central banks, and the European Commission). Using similar methodology, these institutions came to similar conclusions: namely, that historically high corporate profits were the dominant factor in the initial surge of global inflation after COVID.

    The report was submitted on 21 September as evidence to the ACTU’s Price-Gouging Inquiry, headed by Prof Allan Fels. This Inquiry is gathering documentary evidence on how Australian workers and consumers have faced exploitive and unfair pricing practices by Australian corporations, which have added to recent inflation and undermined real wages. The new report provides macroeconomic evidence confirming the relevance of the Inquiry’s terms of reference.

    Policy-makers in other countries (including Europe and the U.S.) agree that corporate profit margins need to fall further in order to continue reducing inflation, while allowing real wages to recover to pre-pandemic levels. The new report shows this is also true in Australia. Average real wages are presently 6% lower than in mid-2021 (when post-pandemic inflation broke out, led by higher prices and corresponding super-profits in strategic industries like energy, manufacturing, and transportation).

    Wages will thus have to grow significantly faster than inflation for a sustained period of time to recoup those losses. That can occur while still reducing inflation if historically high profit margins are reduced to traditional levels.

    The post Profit-Price Inflation: Theory, International Evidence, and Policy Implications appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Millionaire Tim Gurner’s Refreshing Honesty Reveals the Soul of Business

    A striking example occurred this week at a business outlook conference sponsored by the Australian Financial Review.

    In a panel discussion, Tim Gurner – founder and CEO of property developer Gurner Group, and personally worth almost $1 billion – discussed the state of the labour market.

    In his view, historically low unemployment in recent years has undermined the work ethic and discipline of the people who construct the buildings that made him rich.

    “Tradies … have been paid a lot to do not too much in the last few years, and we need to see that change. We need to see unemployment rise. Unemployment has to jump 40 to 50 per cent in my view. We need to see pain in the economy,” Gurner said.

    ‘Hurting the economy’

    “There has been a systematic change where employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them, as opposed to the other way around … We’ve got to kill that attitude, and that has to come through hurting the economy … Governments around the world are trying to increase unemployment … We’re starting to see less arrogance in the employment market, and that has to continue.”

    Gurner didn’t mention ‘inflation’ in his statement. We are regularly told by central bankers that lifting unemployment is necessary to control inflation.

    But in Gurner’s telling, the goal is to control workers, not (at least directly) prices: To re-instil a suitable fear of joblessness and dislocation, so workers work harder and demand less.

    Gurner’s remarks were eerily reminiscent of a prediction made by the great Polish economist, Michal Kalecki.

    Kalecki was a contemporary of John Maynard Keynes. He simultaneously developed theories of aggregate demand management that could prevent depressions and achieve full employment.

    A desirable cushion of jobless

    In a famous 1943 article, Kalecki explained that even though full employment could now be readily achieved through active fiscal and monetary policy, powerful business interests would reject that goal.

    They prefer to maintain a desirable cushion of unemployment, to keep workers in line and private corporations humming along:

    “Lasting full employment is not at all to [business leaders’] liking. The workers would get ‘out of hand’ and the ‘captains of industry’ would be anxious to ‘teach them a lesson’ … A powerful bloc is likely to be formed between big business and the rentier interests, and they would probably find more than one economist to declare that the situation was manifestly unsound. The pressure of all of these forces, and in particular of big business, would most probably induce the government to return to the orthodox policy.”

    Kalecki predicted the historic shift in economic policy that would occur decades later, led by thinkers like Milton Friedman and Edmund Phelps.

    They postulated the idea of a ‘natural rate’ of unemployment. In their view, unemployment is essentially voluntary: Some people choose not to work at the market-clearing wage, supported unwittingly by minimum wages and social welfare policies that subsidise unemployment and discourage job searches.

    Friedman and Phelps urged government to focus on controlling inflation, rather than fruitlessly trying to reduce unemployment below this ‘natural’ rate.

    In modern guise, the theory has a less pejorative moniker: The Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (NAIRU). But it postulates the same idea, namely that unemployment must be kept high enough to discipline labour and restrain labour costs.

    Central bankers rarely explicitly discuss the NAIRU anymore. This is partly to avoid offending the public with the idea that they are actively working to raise unemployment.

    It’s also because NAIRU models have been notoriously unable to pin down any precise number for this mythical benchmark, making it useless for policy purposes. In most industrial countries after the 1990s, unemployment crashed through estimated NAIRU benchmarks with no impact on inflation – casting great doubt on the very concept, let alone specific numerical estimates of it.

    Nevertheless, it is clear that NAIRU thinking still underpins the current obsession of central banks with alleged overheated labour markets as the purported source of post-COVID inflation. It also informs their single-minded focus on suppressing aggregate demand (and thus employment) to reduce that inflation.

    Even bankers say quiet bits out loud
    Occasionally, even central bankers say the quiet bits out loud.

    The Reserve Bank of Australia’s new governor Michele Bullock recently stated the unemployment rate had to rise to 4.5 per cent (from 3.5 per cent when she said it) to allow inflation to return to the bank’s 2.5 per cent target.

    If inflation is still above 2.5 per cent when the unemployment rate gets that high, this will be interpreted as evidence that the true NAIRU must be higher than thought.

    Let’s hope they don’t resuscitate previous estimates of the NAIRU, which formerly suggested unemployment had to be 7 per cent or even higher to keep workers suitably disciplined.

    We should be grateful to Gurner for his refreshing honesty, which helps illuminate the choices being made in current monetary policy.

    Workers who expect too much are a barrier to his efforts to accumulate more wealth. He wants adequate discipline restored, and engineering higher unemployment is exactly the way to do that. And apparently, central bankers agree.

    The post Millionaire Tim Gurner’s Refreshing Honesty Reveals the Soul of Business appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • New laws for employee-like gig workers are good but far from perfect

    The Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke has described proposed new laws to regulate digital platform work as building a ramp with employees at the top, independent contractors at the bottom, and gig platform workers halfway up.

    The new laws will allow the Fair Work Commission to set minimum standards for ‘employee-like workers’ on digital platforms. They are a key part of reforms in the government’s Closing the Loopholes workplace relations bill introduced into parliament this week, and are part of a commitment made before the 2022 election.

    So, what will being halfway up the ramp mean for ‘employee-like’ platform workers? Under the changes, minimum standards can now be set for platform workers, including rideshare drivers, food delivery workers and care workers. Up until now, as independent contractors, digital platform workers have had very few rights, including no rights to minimum pay rates.

    With the changes, the Fair Work Commission will be able to set minimum standards for workers concerning payment terms, deductions, working time, record-keeping, insurance, consultation, representation, delegates’ rights and cost recovery and other matters.

    Other provisions in the legislation are designed to protect workers from being unfairly deactivated from platforms, which is equivalent to being unfairly dismissed, and allow collective agreements for platform workers where platform operators agree.

    The laws will apply only to ‘employee-like’ platform workers, meaning workers who are low-paid (compared to what they would be paid under an award), have low bargaining power and/or have low control over their work.

    There are some restrictions on the standards the Fair Work Commission can set for platform workers. Minimum standards cannot be set concerning overtime rates or rostering arrangements. Nor can the Commission use its standard-setting powers to turn a platform worker into an employee.

    So, ‘employee-like’ platform workers will not have all the minimum standards and rights that employees have. However, halfway up the ramp, they will be much better placed than they were with the minimal rights of independent contractors.

    Overall, these changes are very positive for platform workers and should prevent exploitation of vulnerable workers. However, the reforms stop short of responding to longstanding calls for platform workers, including rideshare, food delivery and care workers, to be treated as employees, and for platform operators to be treated as employers, an approach that has recently been agreed by the 32 member countries of the European Union.

    The proposed reforms in the Closing Loopholes bill don’t go as far as aiming to ensure that how a person is employed can’t leave them without the rights and standards most comparable workers enjoy at work. It leaves platform workers halfway up the ramp in a new worker category with lesser rights than employees.

    The creation of this new category of ‘employee-like’ worker does open up the possibility that some employers may seek to reform their workforces and business models to engage workers who are in the new cheaper worker category, in place of employees. Internationally, where a third category of worker has been created by governments in order to provide protections for low-paid independent contractors, there has been some substitution of employees for workers with less favourable conditions.

    The Closing the Loopholes approach to platform workers also suggests we need to think harder about how to support better flexibility at work.

    The platform work reforms appear to be built on an assumption it is ok for workers who need or want flexibility to have lesser standards and fewer rights at work because of this. Most platform workers value the flexibility they have in their jobs. But that does not mean they should have to trade off rights and standards. Flexibility is not a benefit that accrues only to workers. Consumers and platform operators want flexible services too.

    Originally published in The New Daily 8 September 2023

    The post New laws for ‘employee-like’ gig workers are good but far from perfect appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Wages, employment and power: Call for conference papers

    The Centre for Future Work is hosting a stream at the upcoming AIRAANZ Conference.

    Join us as we continue the AIRAANZ and the Centre for Future Work traditions of bringing researchers and activists together to debate important issues in the world of work and industrial relations.

    The AIRAANZ (Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia and New Zealand) 2024 Conference will be held in Perth from the 31 January to 2 February 2024.

    Wages, employment and power
    Papers are sought on topics that relate to issues concerning employment, power and/or wages.

    Topics could include, but are not limited to:

    • the relationship between power and wages at the firm, industry or national level;
    • legislative reforms affecting wages, employment or power;
    • bargaining strategies to boost power and wages;
    • explanations for changing worker power;
    • job vacancies, labour shortages and wages;
    • the gendering of wages, employment or power;
    • employment, unemployment or participation amongst particular groups or industries;
    • product or labour market competition and worker power;
    • the effects of norms and institutions in labour markets;
    • the geography of power or wages;
    • the ideologies and strategies of employers, unions or the state.

    Submit your abstract to the conference organisers by 29th September.

    Feel free to get in touch with us if you have any questions about topics or the stream or would like any additional information.

    David Peetz d.peetz@griffith.edu.au, davidp@australiainstitute.org.au, +61 466 166 198 or +64 204 127 6749
    Fiona Macdonald fiona@australiainstitute.org.a, +61 437 301 065

    Abstracts must be submitted to the conference organisers via: https://consol.eventsair.com/airaanz-2024/submission-site/Site/Register.

    For AIRAANZ 2024 Conference details see: https://www.airaanz.org/conference/reimagining-industrial-relations-airaanz-2024-conference-31-jan-2-feb-2024/

    The post ‘Wages, employment and power’: Call for conference papers appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • The weak economy shows the Reserve Bank is not threading the needle

    The latest June quarter National Accounts released yesterday showed that without the increase in population, Australia’s economy would have shrunk for two consecutive quarters. This, as Policy Director, Greg Jericho writes in his Guardian Australia column, reveals just how weak our economy is, and how massively households have been hit by the 400 basis points rise in the cash rate.

    The Reserve Bank has talked about trying to thread the needle of lowering inflation and delivering a soft landing. But with GDP per capita falling and real household disposable income per capita now 5% below where it was a year ago, it is becoming harder to suggest the RBA has achieved its aim.

    Even when including population growth GDP only rose at all because of government spending and investment. The private sector is struggling as companies run down their inventories rather than build up supplies in the hopes of increased sales in the months to come.

    The household savings ratio is now as low as it has been since the GFC as households do what they can to pay the costs of essential items and reduce their purchase of discretionary goods and services.

    The Reserve Bank sought to dampen demand from a misguided view that demand was driving inflation. Instead, we know that inflation has largely been driven by international prices and costs and from companies taking advantage of the situation to increase their profits.

    Rather than focus purely on inflation the RBA and the government now need to be most wary of rises in unemployment. We are not in a recession yet, but should the economy continue to fail to grow aside from population unemployment will inevitably rise, and the cost of the RBA’s strategy will be felt even more so by households across the country.

    The post The weak economy shows the Reserve Bank is not threading the needle appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Australia’s emissions are rising at a time they need to fall quickly

    The latest Quarterly Greenhouse Gas Emissions data came and went last Friday with little coverage. As Policy Director, Greg Jericho writes in his Guardian Australia column this meant that much of the terrible news was missed.

    In the past year, Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased with the rise in transport emissions undoing any of the good that comes from falling emissions out of the electricity sector. At a time when we should be on a clear path to reducing emissions by at least 43% below the 2005 level by 2030, we are heading in the opposite direction.

    The figures also highlight the weakness of our 2030 target. The only reason we are even halfway to achieving that cut is because Australia includes land use in its calculations. Without including the faux cuts in emissions that come from using 2005 and the massive land-clearing that occurred that year as a baseline, Australia’s emissions would be just 1.6% below 2005 levels.

    Next week the June quarter GDP figures will be released. We know exactly when they will be released and they will receive massive coverage, including a press conference by the Treasurer soon after 11:30am on Wednesday. By contrast, the quarterly greenhouse gas emissions data is released at random times with now warning and without any minister fronting media to discuss, explain and defend the government’s policies.

    We need to treat the greenhouse gas emissions release with the same level of attention we give to GDP, and we need to demand what the government is doing to ensure in 3 months time with the next release the figures will show a fall, rather than a rise.

    The post Australia’s emissions are rising at a time they need to fall quickly appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • The Case for Investing in Public Schools

    Public schools play a critical role in ensuring access to educational opportunity for Australians from all economic and geographical communities.

    Public schools are accessible to everyone. They provide a vital ‘public good’ service in ensuring universal access to the education that is essential for a healthy economy and society.

    However, inadequate funding for public schools – measured by persistent failure to meet minimum resource standards established through the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) – is preventing students in public schools from fulfilling their potential. Growing evidence (including the latest NAPLAN testing results) attests to declining student completion and achievement in Australia, with major and lasting consequences for students, their families and communities, and the economy.

    In this new report, Centre for Future Work researchers Eliza Littleton, Fiona Macdonald, and Jim Stanford document the large economic and social benefits of stronger funding for public schools. The report measures three broad channels of benefits:

    1. The immediate economic footprint of public schools, including direct and indirect jobs in schools, the education supply chain, and downstream consumer industries.
    2. The labour market and productivity gains resulting from a more educated workforce.
    3. Social and fiscal benefits arising from the fact that school graduates tend to be healthier, require less support from public income programs, and are less likely to be engaged with the criminal justice system.

    Citing international and Australian evidence regarding the scale of these three channels of benefit, the report estimates that funding public schools consistent with the SRS would ultimately generate ongoing economic and fiscal benefits two to four times larger than the incremental cost of additional funding. For governments, the fiscal payback from those benefits (via both enhanced revenues and fiscal savings on health, welfare, and criminal justice expenses) would exceed the upfront investments required in meeting the SRS.

    Please see the full report, The Case for Investing in Public Schools: The Economic and Social Benefits of Public Schooling in Australia, by Eliza Littleton, Fiona Macdonald, and Jim Stanford.

    The post The Case for Investing in Public Schools appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Report Reveals True Potential of Fully Funded Public Schools

    “The Case for Investing in Public Schools: The Economic and Social Benefits of Public Schooling in Australia” has found that the current inadequate funding for public schools is preventing students from reaching their full potential and is depriving the nation of the significant benefits of high levels of school completion.

    The report simulates the short-run and long-run economic benefits arising from the 15% increase in public school funding that would be required to meet the minimum resource benchmarks established through the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS).

    Key findings:

    • Inadequate funding is linked to falling school completion rates and declining relative performance in international achievement. Students from relatively disadvantaged socio-economic, regional, and Indigenous backgrounds are most likely to be affected.
    • Additional funding of $6.6 billion per year is needed for public schools to meet the SRS commitments adopted by federal and state governments a decade ago, a 15% increase in total public school funding.
    • With additional resources, the decline in high school completion rates that has occurred since 2017 could be repaired under a modest estimate, and further gains in completion (in line with historical trends) attained under an optimistic estimate.
    • The enhanced funding and resulting improvements in school completion could lead to employment, economic activity, productivity gains and social savings equal to $17.8 billion and $24.7 billion annually (in 2022 terms) after two decades.
    • These economic benefits are two to four times greater than the additional yearly cost required to fully meet the SRS for public schools.
    • Fiscal improvements resulting from these economic gains, such as increased tax revenues and reduced social expenditures, would eventually offset the incremental resources needed for full SRS funding.

    “Australia’s economic success relies heavily on the potential of our young minds,” said Dr Jim Stanford, Director of the Centre for Future Work, and co-author of the report (with Eliza Littleton and Fiona Macdonald).

    “Public schools play a critical role in ensuring that students have access to an education that provides them with choice and opportunity throughout their lives – regardless of their postcode or economic and family circumstances.

    “With stronger school completion and academic achievement, our communities thrive and our nation benefits from increased economic activity, productivity and earnings.

    “The total economic benefits arising from adequate public-school resourcing would be two to four times larger than the cost of meeting SRS funding standards. The fiscal gains associated with those economic benefits would ultimately offset the cost to government of improved public school funding.

    “Every dollar invested in public education translates into a stronger, more cohesive, and prosperous society. Let’s not rob our students, and our nation, of this opportunity,” Dr Stanford concluded.

    The post Report Reveals True Potential of Fully Funded Public Schools appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.