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at 10:20 am on July 12, 2021 | 16 comments
The AFR hit back hard against RBA governor Phil Lowe’s admission last week that Australia’s mass immigration program pushed down wage growth.
The robber baron’s paper of choice published two spruik pieces over the weekend (here and here) ‘debunking’ Lowe’s argument, which were centred largely around former RBA board member Warwick McKibbin’s view that strong levels of immigration lifts the nation’s productivity:
The idea that immigration costs local jobs or depresses Australian wages is an old furphy.
As former Reserve Bank board member Warwick McKibbin tells The Australian Financial Review: “Real wage growth is driven by productivity. Skilled immigrants raise economy-wide productivity.”