The voice of weatherboard and iron this week complained his income was spread too thinly, between his two families. It's almost as tough as getting by on Newstart.

The former Nationals leader's comments come as the latest Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia report, released Tuesday, confirms the perception many people have - that costs continue to outstrip our incomes - is actually a misconception.

Despite wages slowing since the global financial crisis, wages growth continues to outpace inflation by about one per cent a year - meaning we are continuing to be better off, even if only a little.

Despite the common complaints about rising costs in Canberra, the report also serves as a reminder that here in the nation's capital, we have it better than almost any other place in the country.

According to the HILDA report, when you add up what everyone in the average Canberra family makes, take away tax and even it out to remove the extremes on both ends, you end up with a figure around $66,000 a year. That's down quite a bit on the last survey, but it's worth keeping in perspective. It's still streets ahead of just about everywhere else in the country.

Australian National University researcher Ben Phillips says in the 20 years he has been investigating social and economic issues, the misconception has been ever-present and the capital is no different.

But where Canberra differs is not only the city's higher average incomes and a more uniform distribution of incomes than the other capitals, but also some specific higher costs, chiefly, Mr Phillips says, in petrol prices and rates.

Despite that, the report suggests the ACT has had an 11 per cent fall in median household equivalised income between 2012-13 and 2016-17, a contention he believes is unlikely to actually reflect the reality.

While the longitudinal study was valuable, by its very nature it was likely not as accurate in measuring income levels at the Canberra level, given its small sample size at the local level, when compared to other measures like the ABS' income data.

Phillips says the study at the national level, given its 14,000 study participants, paints a much more reliable figure of the nation's households and broadly that figure is mostly consistent over the 17 times it has returned to ask the same questions of the same Australians.

So while life might feel harder for many Canberrans, and let's not forget the harsh reality for those low income earners, for many of us we're not doing too badly. Despite wages slowing since 2009, costs are not overall significantly outpacing the growth, although that will come as cold comfort at the next visit to the fuel bowser.