Then in the 2000s, our collective living standards were boosted by a very large rise in commodity prices. And over much of this period our national income was further increased by the rise in the labour force participation rate that I mentioned a moment ago. Today things look a little different.
Productivity growth over the past decade has been lower than it was in the 1990s, commodity prices are high but no longer rising, and the share of the population in employment has fallen recently. If these trends continue we face the prospect of considerably slower growth in our living standards than we have become accustomed to.