MARCH KEY FIGURES

		Dec Qtr 2013 to Mar Qtr 2014	Mar Qtr 2013 to Mar Qtr 2014
Weighted average of eight capital cities, All groups		% change	% change
Selected Living Cost Indexes (LCIs) - Household type:
	Pensioner and Beneficiary LCI (PBLCI)	1.1	3.0
	Employee LCI	0.7	2.1
	Age pensioner LCI	0.9	3.0
	Other Government Transfer Recipient LCI	1.1	3.1
	Self-funded Retiree LCI	0.3	2.9
Consumer Price Index (CPI)		0.6	2.9

Percentage change for Household type, December Quarter 2013 to March Quarter 2014

MARCH KEY POINTS


NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE (QUARTER)	Release Date
June 2014	30 July 2014
September 2014	29 October 2014
December 2014	4 February 2015
March 2015	29 April 2015

CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE

For the quarter beginning 1 January 2014, the ABS increased the use of transactions data to compile the consumer price index (CPI), and the selected living cost indexes (SLCI). The ABS has replaced field collected prices with prices derived from transactions data for a subset of products within the total CPI sample where analysis has shown transactions data provides a reliable measure of product prices. The price movement in the March quarter 2014 for this subset of products was calculated using historical and current quarter transactions data. A detailed description of the use of transactions data to compile the Australian CPI (and SLCI) can be found on the ABS website in the September quarter 2013 issue of Consumer Price Index, Australia (cat. no. 6401.0).


ROUNDING

Any discrepancies between totals and sums of components in this publication are due to rounding.


TIME SERIES DATA

Longer time series of statistics presented in this product are available from the Downloads tab for this product on the ABS website. They are available as Time Series Workbooks:

• TABLE 1. All Groups, Index Numbers and Percentage Changes, by Household Type
• TABLE 2. Commodity Groups, Index Numbers, Percentage Changes and Points Contributions, by Household Type
• TABLE 3. Gross Insurance, Mortgage Interest and Consumer Credit, Index Numbers and Percentage Changes, by Household Type

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070.


SUMMARY COMMENTARY


THE LIVING COST INDEXES

The Living Cost Indexes (LCI) 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 March quarter 2014, the living costs of pensioner and beneficiary households (PBLCI) rose 1.1%. Over the same period, the living costs of other government transfer recipient households rose 1.1%, age pensioner households rose 0.9%, employee households rose 0.7% and self-funded retiree households rose 0.3%. For more information about the March quarter 2014 results, see Main Contributors to Change.

These differences arise for a number of reasons. The inclusion of mortgage interest and consumer credit charges in the living cost indexes has a significant impact on employee and other government transfer recipient households. The inclusion of mortgage interest and consumer credit charges and the different treatments of housing and insurance costs in the LCIs result in variations between the LCIs and the CPI series. The expenditure patterns of those households measured by the LCIs differ from those of the overall household sector in scope of the CPI; these also contribute to differences in the percentage changes.

For a discussion of the relationship between the LCIs and CPI, see the Explanatory Notes.