While American households suffered a 30 per cent decline in their wealth for the six-year period 2004 to 2010, Australian households enjoyed a 20 per cent increase for the same time frame.

Treasurer Wayne Swan attributed the hike to the stimulus released by the federal government during the 2008 global financial crisis which protected thousands of jobs and the country's social safety net.

Data from the Reserve Bank of Australia said that median wealth in Australia was at a little less than $400,000 while mean wealth was almost $700,000.

However, Mr Swan emphasised that Australia also felt the impact of the GFC, citing in his economic note released on Sunday that $150 billion was wiped from government revenues since the GFC.

"Australians have also seen the impact on their household wealth. This is obvious not only in the performance of people's superannuation accounts in recent years, but the more cautious attitudes towards debt that have contributed to the softness in house prices," Brisbane Times quoted Mr Swan.

Opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb hit the Labor-led government for citing optimistic forecasts to develop the budget.

"The budget was predicated on everything going well around the world. The fact is even the budget papers indicated that for every four per cent change in the terms of trade you are talking about a $7 billion increase in the budget deficit," Network Ten quoted Mr Robb.

Mr Robb pointed out that Australia's terms of trade were 50 per cent higher than average compared to the 1980s and 1990s and to the lower commodity prices than anticipated. He also cited BHP Billiton's plan to postpone its Olympic Dam expansion and similar review by Royal Dutch Shell of $17 billion worth of liquefied natural gas projects.

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