To: The Next Federal Government
Workers Need a 5.5% Pay Rise
The union movement is advocating for a 5.5 per cent increase to the minimum wage in the Annual Wage Review - an increase designed to prevent further real wage cuts for a quarter of all workers.
The Federal Government can, and should, take action to improve wage outcomes for workers.
Professionals Australia is calling on the next Federal Government to make a submission to the Annual Wage Review that supports a 5.5 per cent increase to the minimum wage and to remove caps on public sector wages.
Why is this important?
Recent ABS Wage Price Index (WPI) data showed that wages have only grown on average by 2.4% for the year to March, well short of the 5.1 per cent increase in the CPI over the same period.
This means real wages have actually fallen 2.5 per cent in the past 12 months.
The WPI Index data is worse than projected in the Federal Budget and follows almost a decade of record low wage growth.
Only a 5.5% increase will give workers a pay rise in real terms, relieving the pressures of the massive rise in cost of living that Australians are facing.