Our future prosperity is bright. Foreign income is the ace up our sleeve

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Our future prosperity is bright. We’ve hidden an ace up our sleeve

Ross Gittins Economics Editor September 10, 2025 — 5.00am

As you may have noticed, the nation’s economists are in a gloomy mood and warning of tough times ahead. Our standard of living stopped rising a decade ago and, they tell us, it won’t improve much in coming years unless we really lift our game.

Just this week one leading economist, Chris Richardson, predicted that real household disposable income per person – a common measure of living standards – wouldn’t get back to the temporary peak it reached in 2021 until 2037 .

Why are our economists so downbeat? What’s worrying them? Well, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve already heard about it – ad naus