Despite the Turnbull Government predicting a rise in pay packets, former treasurer Wayne Swan claimed real private sector wages have grown just one per cent across the five years since the Coalition assumed office in 2013. He claimed Labor achieved an equivalent increase in a single year of government. Is that correct? Mr Swan's claim is in the ballpark. Real private sector wages under the previous Labor government grew by about 4.2 per cent, over five-and-three-quarter years. That's an annual average pace of about 0.7 per cent. The latest data available at the time Mr Swan made his claim shows under the Coalition, real private sector wages ' from September 2013 to March 2018 ' have grown by 1.2 per cent. That's an annual average pace of about 0.3 per cent, over four-and-a-half years. Mr Swan has overstated wages growth under Labor, and understated wages growth under the Coalition, although not excessively so. Alternative methods to assess the data produce similar, although not identical, results. Regardless, what is clear is that wages growth has been sluggish in recent years despite falling unemployment.
Verdict: In the ballpark