A lot has happened to the economy since COVID struck, and reading the economic tea leaves has become more difficult. Many of the gains for many Australians in 2020 and 2021 were artificial and didn’t last. The COVID Supplement temporarily doubled JobSeeker, for example. JobKeeper paid workers what their employers could not. As these measures have been unwound, the gains have been unwound, making it more difficult than usual to separate the economic signal from the noise. But in a study just published in the the ANU Centre for Social Policy Research journal POLIS@ANU we have made an attempt. We wanted to find out ... (full story)