Recently released figures indicate an increase of 0.7% in Selected Living Cost Indexes (LCIs) since the September 2018 quarter. This is a 2.1% increase from the same time last year. Consumer Price Index (CPI) indicted a 0.5% increase for the September quarter, up 1.8% from last year.
The December quarter 2018 saw the living costs of pensioner and beneficiary households rose 0.7%, other government transfer recipient households rose 0.9%, employee households rose 0.6%, self-funded retiree households rose 0.5% and age pensioner households rose 0.4%.
The inclusion of mortgage interest, consumer credit charges and the different treatments of housing and insurance costs in the LCIs are the cause of these rises. The expenditure patterns of those households measured by the LCIs differ from those of the overall household sector, contributing to the differences in the percentages.
