CPI Numbers Don’t Tell the Whole Story

by Greg Jericho in The Guardian

Greg Jericho

Chief Economist

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Originally published in The Guardian on February 3, 2022

With the rise in inflation as Australia’s economy struggles with re-opening and supply chain problems, each release of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) generates headlines and political debate. But the CPI doesn’t necessarily provide a full reading of price pressures: depending on who you are, and what you buy. In this column published in the Guardian Australia, Greg Jericho (new policy director for the Centre for Future Work) dissects several measurement issues related to this most-watched economic statistic.

Jericho shows that inflation measurements can very widely for different types of household. Those with limited incomes (including government benefit recipients), who spend more of their income on ‘non-discretionary’ items, face an especially large threat to their real living standards as inflation picks up.

See Greg’s full column, “With inflation on the rise, Australia’s cost of living will dominate the election debate,” in the Guardian Australia.

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