ACTU secretary Sally McManus says worker's share of wealth is the lowest it's ever been, pointing to the labour's share of income statistics as evidence. RMIT ABC Fact Check investigates.
, a professor of economics at the University of Melbourne, said it was "most usual to report labour's income as a share of total factor income".
According to Mr Eslake, income was a "flow" concept, something that could only be measured over a period of time, while wealth was a "stock" concept, something that, in theory, could be measured at a particular point in time. Dr Hawkins, meanwhile, told Fact Check that "to the extent that wealth represents accumulated income, a fall in the labour share will lead over time to workers having a lower share of national wealth".Fact Check has assessed the second part of Ms McManus' claim — that labour's share of the GDP is at its lowest level since 1960 — but notes that this is a measure of income, not wealth, as suggested by Ms McManus.
Prior to June 2021 — when labour accounted for 46.13 per cent of GDP — this ratio had not fallen below the proportion recorded in December 1959 .