Where has the recovery left you?

Glenn Stevens isn’t too popular in Australia’s coffee shops right now.

The Reserve Bank chief’s aggressive program of interest rate rises has been frightening the customers away from the nation’s pleasant places like coffee shops, restaurants and shopping malls.

This shows up in the results of a performance index, produced jointly by the Australian Industry Group and the Commonwealth Bank.

The index confirmed that demand in Australia’s critically important services sector remains soft.

The AI Group’s Heather Ridout says this shows that Australia’s economic recovery remains “patchy.”

That raises a very important question.

Where has the economic recovery left you?

If you are in the iron ore or coal trade, you are probably doing quite nicely.

Export prices in these areas are now very strong.

Real estate agents, too, have been enjoying good times, with home prices rising solidly.

The picture for home buyers, though, is distinctly mixed.

The Reserve Bank has now raised interest rates at five of its last six meetings, which are held monthly.

That has left  first home buyers, with a typical $300,000 mortgage,  facing monthly repayments of $2,026.

That’s $266 a month more than they were paying, as recently as  last September.

So they will be almost $3,200 a year worse off than they were then.

The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, insists though that this is not the whole story.

He says home owners, generally, with a similar sized mortgage will still be $6,000 a year better off, than they were under the higher interest rates that applied before the global economic crisis struck.

Young Australians and school leavers , though,   clearly have big problems.

While the nation’s general unemployment rate is still relatively moderate  – at a touch above 5 per cent – their prospects remain grim.

Youth unemployment still stands at 19 per cent in Australia, with pockets above 30 per cent, in some surprising places.

These include the upper middle class suburb of Wembley, in Perth.

Expect to hear much more talk, in future, about a two speed economy developing in Australia.

You may be on the fast track.  Or you may not.

But your place will matter.