A confronting graph shows how Australia’s standard of living has slumped in recent years, as real per capita GDP fell into decline under the Albanese government.

The graph, from conservative outlet The Spectator, compares GDP growth under each Australian government since 1976.

Real per capita GDP growth is a useful measure of living standards because it adjusts for inflation and population changes, showing the average quantity of goods and services produced per person.

Adding more people to the economy grows overall GDP, but if each worker doesn’t become more productive, the economic pie is sliced into smaller pieces.

If Australians produce goods and services at a faster rate than population growth, however, real GDP per capita rises, which generally leads to higher material living standards because more goods and services are available per person, increasing average income and consumption.

The chart shows that real per capita GDP rose by more than 30 per cent during the Hawke/Keating government, a period of major reforms that transformed Australia into an open, globally competitive economy.

It also rose more than 30 per cent during the Howard government, helped by further reforms and the mining boom.

“After Howard, the picture changes,” according to the chart’s author B.W. Williams.

“The Rudd/Gillard period was impacted by the Global Financial Crisis, with per capita real GDP increasing by less than 5 per cent over six years.

“During the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison period, per capita real GDP grew at a steady but subdued pace before the pandemic struck, and then subsequently bounced back sharply to end around ten per cent higher at the end of the nine years of Coalition government.”

Real per capita GDP has been weak over the past 20 years, as the economy got bigger mainly due to population growth, while productivity growth has “tanked”, Mr Williams wrote.

He described the weaker productivity performance of the last two decades as an “indictment of both major parties”, neither of which had “found the policy answers that made the Hawke/Keating and Howard eras so strong”.

“But then there is Albanese,” he continued, describing the current Albanese government’s line in the chart as “embarrassingly weak”.

“This is the only government in these fifty years to deliver per capita real GDP that was lower at the end of its first term than it was at the start.

“And now, a year into Albanese’s second term, this measure is still below its starting point.”

Mr Williams said the government had relied on immigration-driven population growth to boost GDP, instead of productivity growth.

“Australia is a wealthy, resourceful, and well-educated nation. It has delivered strong per capita GDP growth before. It can do so again,” he wrote.

“But that will require a government that understands the difference between making the cake bigger and making the slice bigger.

“After four years, it is clear that this government is not that government. The charts do not lie. The Albanese government is an economic failure.”

Weak productivity growth has swept across many advanced economies over the past 20 years as business investment fell and employment shifted from manufacturing to lower-productivity services and healthcare.

It’s a headwind also faced by the United States, as Mr Williams showed with a chart of American presidencies.

It comes as the International Monetary Fund has forecast Australia’s total real GDP would grow 1.9 per cent in 2026 — 0.1 percentage points lower than its previous forecast — and 1.7 per cent in 2027.

Over the long run, Australia’s economy has usually grown by more than 3 per cent a year in real terms.

Australia’s average growth rate over the five years to 2027 is forecast to be just 1.8 per cent — the weakest outside the pandemic period since 1984.

That would leave Australia ranked 21st out of the world’s 30 largest economies tracked by the IMF.