Inflation may be falling fast with rates set to follow, but people like Ash and Rebecca are still struggling
Inflation may be falling fast with rates set to follow, but people like Ash and Rebecca are still struggling
Inflation comes in lower than expected, with prices rising just 0.6 per cent over the December quarter and 4.1 per cent over the past year.
Prices have gone up due to past inflation. They're not going to go down just because the current inflation rate has plateaued.
So whoop-de-do, it looks like the year on year acceleration of inflation has been stopped. While that's good news on a macroeconomic level, it feels very much like a "Good news everyone! The crippling cost of living should now only slowly get worse!" kind of situation on a personal level.
Maybe easing of interest rates will balance that slow increase , but I sure as shit don't see any great improvement on everyday living for the average person on the horizon.
Minimum wage went up by 5.75% last year and average wages went up by almost as much. That's also about to be followed by a major tax cut low and middle income earners. There were also some pretty substantial short term bandaids like the Energy Bill Relief Fund (those have worked out to thousands of dollars for some people).
I don't know about "good news" but it certainly softens the blow.
This isn't an easy problem to solve. Remember inflation is fundamentally measuring how much money people are spending. The government cannot control that directly (or at least, we don't want them to).