The muscle we need to flex to bring inflation down with less pain

Australians are on a treadmill which keeps getting faster. We’re working longer hours, but the extra miles we’re putting in are keeping us from falling off, rather than moving us forward. Last year, the Productivity Commission said we sharply increased our working hours. In fact, we pushed them up by the most on record (excluding the pandemic period), according to the commission’s acting chair, Alex Robson. Australians are working longer hours, but that doesn’t necessarily increase our productivity. Credit: Jason South But extra hours don’t improve our productivity. Ideally, we want to produce more with what we’ve got, rather than…