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Prices are rising, household budgets are under pressure and fears of a recession are growing across Australia.
Yet Canberra is (comparatively) flying. It was the fastest-growing capital city over the past decade and its economy is bounding along with it.
The ACT government's balance sheet has improved markedly in a year, and Chief Minister Andrew Barr now says a surplus is almost within reach.
The 2023-24 budget says this rapid growth will offer Canberrans some protection against hardships that the rest of the country is facing.
But it's not all good news.
This is what we've learned from reading the budget papers.
1. Roads, schools and hospitals are becoming more crowded
One factor underpins almost everything else in this budget: Canberra's booming population.
This growth is the driving incentive for most big projects underway in the ACT: the ongoing expansion of the Canberra Hospital, planning for a new northside hospital, new schools and the continued rollout of the city's light rail system.
But population growth has also led to a GST windfall for the government — extra payments from the Commonwealth, which had underestimated the ACT's population for years.
The ACT is expected to gain another 10,000 people in 2023-24. After that, its population will continue to increase by about 2 per cent a year.
To put that in perspective, Australia's population is expected to grow by less than 1.4 per cent a year.
Of course, as the population grows, Canberra becomes more crowded, adding pressure to public services, from roads to the rubbish tip, and making it especially hard for Canberrans to find a home.
2. Household rates no longer rocketing up
You might not have noticed it, but many Canberrans paid less in tax this financial year than the previous one — at least, after taking inflation into account.
Most taxes, fees and charges go up every year in line with average wage rises.
But household rates had been increasing much faster — almost 10 per cent a year on average — for almost a decade, under the ACT's changing tax policy.
Last financial year, rates rose 3.75 per cent on average, well below inflation.
This year, they'll continue to rise by that amount — or an extra $114 — and it's expected to remain steady for the foreseeable future.
The government began up-ending the ACT's tax system 11 years ago, gradually replacing some inefficient taxes (like stamp duties) with land taxes (like household rates).
The Australian Bureau of Statistics now says the ACT is relatively low-taxing — Canberrans pay less in local and state-level taxes than New South Wales and Victorian residents, for example.
3. Canberra's housing crisis continues
Canberra is Australia's second-most-expensive city for housing, after Sydney.
And the budget papers offer little hope that this will change in the mid-term, whether for buyers or renters.
The government is withholding details of its main policy fix — deciding where to build new housing — until later this year, when it finalises its land-release program and district strategies.
Instead, the government announced last week that it would substantially increase the city's public housing stock.
It is also funding three large "build-to-rent" developments, which will include some affordable rental housing for low-income Canberrans.
Will enough dwellings be built to accommodate the ACT's fast-growing population? For now, that crucial question remains largely unanswered.
The budget papers say the population has outpaced housing growth over most of the past decade.
But they note a recent drop in house and rental prices "suggests that supply in the market is better accommodating demand".
The government is also approving new homes more quickly this year: building approvals increased by almost 70 per cent.
However, a combination of high building costs, worker shortages and high interest rates is slowing this construction down.
4. Some household bill relief amid inflation pain
Inflation is a national crisis. And the Reserve Bank is causing a national headache by hammering away at it with interest rate increases.
Mr Barr was keen to tell Canberrans that the main pressure on their household budgets was caused by the federal government — specifically, "the cumulative effect of 10 years of suppressed wage growth".
However, this ACT budget offers some respite.
Canberrans' second-largest expense, after housing, tends to be their energy bills.
So the government is extending its utilities concession — a one-off $800 rebate — to an extra 12,000 households, meaning almost one-in-four ACT households will now be eligible.
This is just one of dozens of ACT and federal schemes that Canberrans can access to lower their cost of living.
To work out which ones you may be eligible for, visit the government's assistance website.
5. What can go wrong from here?
Government budget forecasts don't always land perfectly. The ripples from pandemics and wars, for example, can cause global havoc.
However, the ACT Treasury says the biggest risks facing the territory's economy are likely to be domestic rather than international.
Its main concern is "rising interest rates and persistent inflation".
It also says a lack of skilled workers, or rapidly rising wages in the services sector, could undermine the ACT.
Nonetheless, the budget papers say the territory remains better placed than other Australian jurisdictions, in part because it is attracting skilled workers from those places.
Even the Treasury's most pessimistic forecast is for the ACT's population to grow by 1.5 per cent a year — still faster than the rest of the country.
Which brings us back to where we began: rapid population growth is one of Canberra's best economic assets, but also the source of its biggest challenges.