Housing shut-out for low earners: ACTU

Low-income earners are being shut out of the housing market, trade unions say as they continue their push for an increase in the minimum wage.

The annual earnings of a full-time minimum wage worker is just over $33,000, while the average dwelling price in Australia's capital cities is $677,550, the Australian Council of Trade Unions says.

The ACTU has calculated that paying 80 per cent of a mortgage would take up 81 per cent of a minimum wage worker's pay packet.

It has lodged a submission to the Fair Work Commission's annual wage review seeking a $27 a week boost in the minimum wage.

The commission needed to carefully consider the impact on low-income earners when they are nearly exiled from the housing market, ACTU secretary Dave Oliver said on Tuesday.

"The only way they can afford to buy a home is to work multiple jobs but if all these jobs are low income then it still remains extremely tough," he said.