Cost-of-living pressures are being felt by all households but some are being hit harder than others, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Source: ABC News.
The bureau’s latest Living Cost Indexes recorded annual cost increases of between 2.3 and 4.2 per cent in the year to December.
The households that saw the largest increase in costs over the past year were those on government payments, with increases of at least 4 per cent largely driven by rising energy costs.
Employee households saw the smallest increase of 2.3 per cent because they “benefited the most from falling mortgage interest charges”, the bureau said.
The Reserve Bank cut rates in February, March and August last year.
Australian National University economic and social researcher Ben Phillips said the data showed positives for employee households where the primary source of income was wages and salaries.
Dr Phillips said it was different for people on government payments, which included pensioners and welfare recipients.
“That’s probably mainly driven by electricity costs increasing fairly sharply with the rebates coming off through the course of the year,” he said.
The quarterly rise in living costs across all household types slowed in the December quarter compared with the September quarter.
“In this [December] quarter, lower electricity and health costs offset rises in other areas of living costs,” the bureau’s head of prices statistics, Michelle Marquardt, said.
“The timing of the Commonwealth Energy Bill Relief Fund extension payments, and falls in pharmaceutical products and medical and hospital services, lowered out-of-pocket costs for households.”
The Albanese Government has announced its subsidy for electricity bills will not be extended into 2026.
The Reserve Bank lifted interest rates by 0.25 percentage points in its meeting on Tuesday, pushing the cash rate to 3.85 per cent.
Dr Phillips said the increase would have a small impact on households with a mortgage, but only if interest rates did not continue to rise.
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Living costs rise for all but some hit harder, new ABS data finds (By Ahmed Yussuf, ABC News)
