25/11/2009 Note: The Summary Commentary has been amended to show the correct quarter for the beginning of the series (June quarter 1998) and correct movement in the re-referenced CPI since that time (39.4%).
NOTES
FORTHCOMING ISSUES
| ISSUE (QUARTER) | Release Date |
| December 2009 | 15 February 2010 |
| March 2010 | 17 May 2010 |
| June 2010 | 16 August 2010 |
| September 2010 | 15 November 2010 |
ROUNDING
Any discrepancies between totals and sums of components in this publication are due to rounding.
CPI DATA RE-REFERENCED TO JUNE QUARTER 1998 = 100.0
For ease of comparison, the index reference period for the CPI data used throughout this publication has been re-referenced to June quarter 1998 = 100.0. All index numbers and percentage changes shown are calculated on this basis. This may lead to some minor differences from the figures published in Consumer Price Index, Australia (cat. no. 6401.0).
CHANGES TO THIS ISSUE
This issue is the first quarterly release of Analytical Living Cost Indexes for Selected Australian Household Types (cat. no. 6463.0). There is some consequent changes to the layout of tables to accommodate this.
INQUIRIES
For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 or Lee Taylor on Canberra (02) 6252 6251, email <lee.taylor@abs.gov.au>.
SUMMARY COMMENTARY
THE ANALYTICAL LIVING COST INDEX
The Analytical Living Cost Indexes (ALCI) for Selected Australian Household Types 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 September quarter 2009, changes in living costs ranged from a low of 1.0% (employee households and other government transfer recipient households) to a high of 1.1% (age pensioner households and self funded retiree households). The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 1.0% over the same period.
Since the series began in June quarter 1998, changes in living costs for each household type have historically tracked closely to the CPI. The living costs of age pensioner households showed the highest increase of 43.0% followed by other government transfer recipient households which increased 42.9%, slightly higher than the 39.4% increase in the CPI. Self-funded retiree households have experienced an increase of 39.0%. The living costs of employee households increased by 40.6%.
These differences have come about for a number of reasons. The inclusion of mortgage interest and consumer credit charges in the analytical living cost indexes has a significant impact for employee and other government transfer recipient households. The inclusion of mortgage interest and consumer credit charges and the different treatments of housing and insurance in the ALCIs result in variations between the ALCIs and the CPI series. The expenditure patterns of those households measured by the ALCIs differ from those of the overall household sector covered by the CPI. This also contributes to differences in the percentage changes.
For a discussion of the relationship between the ALCIs and CPI, see the Explanatory Notes. |
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