John Howard and Peter Costello's economic management may be keeping corporate profits and share prices at record highs but the household budgets of working families are under more pressure than ever the ACTU said today. Releasing previously unpublished data from the ABS Household Expenditure Surveys in 1999 and 2004 today, ACTU President Sharan Burrow said today: "On top of the Government's new IR laws which undermine job security and put downward pressure on worker's wages and conditions, previously unpublished data from the ABS shows that housing and transport have overtaken food as the highest cost budget items for Australian working families. This is even before recent interest rate rises & spiralling petrol prices. ABS data shows that average working families on incomes up to $80,000 a year are now typically spending half their income on just four main items: housing, transport, food and medical expenses. It shows: * The cost of housing ($153 a week) and transport ($145 a week) has overtaken the cost of food ($143 a week) in the weekly budgets of low and middle-income working families. Five years ago food was the major cost item for low and middle-income working families with transport costs second and housing further down the list in weekly budgets. The figures also show that Government tax cuts have been largely targeted at high-income earners and have provided little relief from rising prices for average working families. * The ABS data shows that low income working families with average incomes of around $35,000 a year are paying proportionately more of their income in tax than they were five years ago. During the same period, working families with high incomes that average more than $140,000 a year have enjoyed a cut in the proportion of their income they pay in tax." Many working families are coping with these increased costs by going further into debt, with credit card debt increasing at a rate of nearly 21 per cent a year for the past five years. "On top of all this the Howard Government's new industrial relations laws will put working families under even more pressure. In just a month since the new laws were introduced media reports have detailed numerous instances of workers being unfairly sacked and employers using the new laws to cut wages, get rid of penalty rates and shift loadings and push workers into lower paying and insecure 'independent contractor' work arrangements. "While the cost of living continues to rise the Government's new work laws have attacked the job security and incomes of working families. The Howard Government has abandoned working families already struggling to keep their heads above water. Under this Government people are working harder not to get ahead but just to keep what they have got," said Ms Burrow. More information: The pressure on working families: ACTU 2006 Federal Budget briefing paper - DOWNLOAD FILE BELOW Media Contact: Ian Wilson ph 0408 513 849