So in order to compare the economic wellbeing of Australia and Germany, we must first understand

what economic wellbeing refers to. According to Investopedia, it refers to “present and future financial
security” – in other words, the ability to make economic decisions and be able to be react flexibly even
in the case of a financial crisis in the future. In order to measure this concept, there are various
indicators that can be used. We’ll start with the most well-known and commonly used one, which is GDP
per capita.

GDP per capita refers to the total goods and services that a country produces divided by the population
– in other words, it’s a measure of the production of a country that also accounts for the number of
people. In this way, it’s a good indicator of how well a particular economy is performing. However, this
doesn’t mean that it reflects personal income or the distribution of wealth, only the performance of the
country’s economy as a whole.

From this, it can be seen that Australia and Germany have both been seeing an upward trend in GDP per
capita over recent years following a decrease in previous years, which is a sign of both economies
bouncing back from their respective falls and growing in size. It is also worth noting that Australia has
consistently had a higher GDP per capita than Germany since 2008, with their respective values being
around $55,000 and $45,000 in 2017. This indicates that Australia’s economy output has been higher
when accounting for population within the current time period. Given that the average GDP per capita
was $17,300, however, it would be reasonable to say that both countries are performing well in this
aspect.

The next indicator we’ll be looking at is inflation. Inflation represents a gradual rise in the price of good
and services over time, thereby decreasing the value of the currency. While usually carrying negative
connotations, the existence of inflation in and of itself isn’t a bad thing, as long as it is within a healthy
range. This target for inflation is said to be 2-3%, as any more than that could have undesirable effects
on the stability of the economy.

From these graphs, it can be observed that both Australia and Germany have been fluctuating around 2
to 3 percent in recent years, stabilizing around this range ever since the 2010s. This is in contrast to the
considerably more erratic movement of both countries in previous years. This is indicative that both
countries are currently experiencing the ideal amount of inflation for their respective economies and
can be considered by this indicator to be doing quite well.

The last indicator that we will be looking at is the rate of unemployment. This refers to the percentage
of people who are unemployed out of the total labour force. As such, a high level of unemployment
reflects low levels of economic activity and a high amount of potential workers who are not contributing
to the labour force.

From these graphs, it can be seen that despite experiencing minute changes in their level of
unemployment, Australia and Germany are both mostly remaining at the same unemployment rate
across the past year, with Australia being around 5% and Germany being around 3%. When considering
the sheer scale of this indicator, this 2% percent difference is quite significant, so it can be said that
Germany is performing considerably better than Australia in terms of lowered unemployment. However,
given that an unemployment rate of about 4-6% considered “healthy”, both countries are still
performing well in terms of this indicator in their own right.