Originally published in The Guardian on April 14, 2022

The election campaign thus far has been dominated with gotcha questions that unfortunately have missed the vital need to examine the different policies on offer at a time when Australia’s economy is in a state of extreme flux.

Labour market and fiscal policy director, Greg Jericho writes in his Guardian Australia column that the recovery from the depths of the pandemic has overwhelmingly been on the backs of casual workers. It also has seen a large increase in the gap between people on JobSeeker and the number of unemployed. The rise of low paying, insecure work that has helped bolster the employment figures has also meant people who are working but still earning less than enough to keep out of poverty is remaining high.