The ABS has released key statistics for the Living Cost Indexes (LCI). The LCIs have been designed to answer the question: “By how much would after tax money incomes need to change to allow households to purchase the same quantity of consumer goods and services that they purchased in the base period?”
In the June quarter 2019, rises were recorded for the living costs of:
- Pensioner and beneficiary households by 0.5%.
- Self-funded retiree households by 0.7%.
- Age pensioner households by 0.6%.
- Employee households by 0.5%.
- Other government transfer recipient households by 0.5%.
As a result of the inclusion of mortgage interest, consumer credit charges, and the different treatments of housing and insurance costs in the LCIs, there are variations between the LCIs and the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Households measured by the LCIs have expenditure patterns that differ from those of the overall household sector in scope of the CPI.
