Evidence
Gloomy Australians Keep Spending as Debt Hits 178 Percent of Income
Everything this story rests on. If a figure is not here, we did not publish it.
The one number
178.4%
Household debt to gross disposable income, Q2 2026
Sources
| Series | Publisher | Tier | Period | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| cash_rate_au ↗ | Reserve Bank of Australia | Tier 1 | 29 September 2026 | RBA cash rate target, published decision |
| household_debt_income_au ↗ | Reserve Bank of Australia | Tier 1 | Q2 2026 | RBA household debt to gross disposable income ratio |
| trimmed_mean_cpi_au ↗ | Australian Bureau of Statistics | Tier 1 | Q2 2026 | ABS CPI quarterly trimmed mean, annual change |
| inflation_rate ↗ | Australian Bureau of Statistics | Tier 1 | Q2 2026 | ABS headline CPI, annual change |
| credit_housing_12m_au ↗ | Reserve Bank of Australia | Tier 1 | 12 months to August 2026 | RBA housing credit growth, 12-month ended series |
| housing_loan_repayments_share_disposable_income_au ↗ | Reserve Bank of Australia | Tier 1 | Q1 2026 | RBA housing loan scheduled repayments as share of household disposable income |
| household_debt_to_income ↗ | OECD | Tier 1 | 2024 | OECD household debt to net disposable income, Australia, third of 20 OECD nations |
Caveat
If real household final consumption expenditure has already turned negative in Q3 2026, the divergence has closed and there is no gap story.
How to check this yourself
Follow the source links above. Each goes to the published series, not to our copy of it. Where we computed a figure rather than quoting one, the calculation is stated in the basis column. If you find an error, it gets a correction on the story.