It was the event which shook the world - the global financial crisis leading entire financial systems to the brink of collapse.
And while Australia emerged relatively unscathed, the impacts were felt across the economy.
At the same time as unemployment rose, wage growth fell from an annual rate of around 4 per cent in 2008 to a pandemic low of 1.3 per cent in late 2020.
A Productivity Commission report has found while most Australians earn more than their parents did at a similar age, wage stagnation means people born in the 1990s have experienced almost no income growth between the ages of 25 and 30 compared with those born in the prior decade.
Commission Chair Danielle Wood says it also identified a 'stickiness' at the extreme ends of the income distribution spectrum with those raised in very low income households more likely to stay there.
"We find there is a group that gets stuck in poverty, they’re more likely to be older, they’re more likely to be renting from a migrant background where they’re not speaking English at home. And more likely to live in a disadvantaged area. It looks like there's a group of Australians getting stuck in poverty and we think that's an area we need to focus our policy efforts."
The report finds women were less likely to outearn their parents than men.
And while wage growth has recovered more recently, higher levels of inflation mean real incomes remain under pressure.
Economist Angela Jackson explains.
"What we've seen for young people joining the labour market since the global financial crisis is that their wages simply haven't grown at the same pace as previous generations. So they're not getting the rewards from their education and the work experience that the previous generation received."
Despite these findings, a coinciding report by UBS shows Australians are becoming richer - ranking number two globally when it comes to median wealth per adult.
It comes ahead of whats expected to be one of the biggest generational wealth transfers in Australia's history.
Investment Consultant at Wealth Management firm UBS Stephen Cabot [[car-bot]] says that transfer is expected to exacerbate wealth inequality in Australia.
"Just to put that 83 trillion into perspective, in terms of quantum of money, that's effectively the same as the whole economic activity of the world for a year. That amount of wealth is going to be transferred over the next couple of decades. What we're finding is that the wealth is transferred intra-generational so from spouse, that's going from husband to wife who has the longer life expectancy and after that is when it becomes inter-generational."
