The Economy Hub: Inflation higher for poorest

New data sets from Stats NZ show how inflation is higher for the poorest. Photo / Michael Craig

Inflation hits the poor hardest according to new data sets from Statistics NZ.

This week in on the Economy Hub ANZ senior economist Philip Borkin discusses what's driving the phenomenon and why the traditional Consumer Price Index is not a realistic measure of individual experience.

In fact Statistics NZ found that when you account for spending across different demographic groups the impact of inflation is quite different.

The consumer price index has the official annual rate of at 1.7 per cent.

But the household living cost indexes show inflation experienced from the June 2016 quarter to the June 2017 quarter up 2 per cent for the poorest households and beneficiaries

It was up 1.8 per cent for Māori households, 1.7 per cent for superannuitants but just 1.4 per cent for the wealthiest, high-expenditure household group.

In this episode we also look at this weeks unemployment data, due Wednesday, and whether it will be strong enough to drive wage inflation - something that has been missing in action for some time.

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