A wild ride – but most of us came through it well

Australian families have had wild rides – financially – in the wake of the global economic crisis.

This is clearly illustrated in figures that the Reserve Bank has just released, as part of its Financial Stability Review.

Mostly, though, we have emerged from the turmoil surprisingly well.

The bank notes, for example, that the net worth of a typical Australian family at the end of last year, was $610,000.

That, it adds, is “only a little below the 2007 peak.”

This relatively good performance was, undoubtedly, due to the Australian habit of investing in the family home, rather than the stock market.

Share market investors, of course, were hit hard by the stock market crash.

However school leavers and recent retirees have been hit very hard, too.

Even the general unemployment rate, for recent school leavers, is currently 19 per cent.

That’s almost four times the rate for other Australians.

There are also many places, like the up-market Perth suburb of Wembley, where the unemployment rate for school leavers is above 30 per cent.

Recent retirees were shocked, too, when they learnt that their superannuation payments would be much smaller than they had confidently expected.

The bank said, though, that on balance real net worth per household rose by 11 per cent last year.

The price of dwellings had risen by 10 per cent last year, despite the crisis.

It said this made up about 60 per cent of Australian household assets.

The Reserve Bank noted, though, that real wages had fallen by 2.6 per cent last year.

That happened as thousands of full time jobs were converted to part time positions, as a result of the crisis.

However that fall  was more than offset by lower interest rates and the Federal government’s stimulatory packages.

“As a result, total disposable income per household increased by 3.5 per cent, in real terms,” the Reserve Bank said.