Have tax-transfer policy reforms increased inequality?

Melbourne Institute Research Insight No. 01/20

Date: February 2020

Author(s):

Nicolas Hérault
Guyonne Kalb
Francisco Azpitarte

Abstract

Australia has experienced 28 years of uninterrupted annual economic growth. Since reaching a peak of 11 per cent in 1993, the unemployment rate declined sharply and has been below 6 per cent for most of the period since mid-2003. Yet despite unprecedented economic expansion in Australia since the mid-1990s, fiscal reform has created a less progressive tax-transfer system, contributing to rising income inequality.

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