Inflation by Spending Group: methodology

What this metric measures

How fast prices are rising in each part of household spending: food, housing, transport, health and the rest, down to individual items such as electricity and rents. The headline line is the all-groups consumer price index; choose a spending group to compare.

Why it matters: The headline inflation rate hides big differences. Rents, electricity, insurance or food can rise much faster than prices overall, and households feel them very differently. Seeing which groups are driving prices up shows where cost-of-living pressure is concentrated.

Source & provenance

Publisher

ABS Consumer Price Index (Cat. 6401.0). Annual % change by group, sub-group and expenditure class: derived from the quarterly index until the ABS's own monthly figures for that series begin (2018 for some items, 2022 or 2023 for electricity, gas and rents, April 2025 for most), the ABS's monthly figures after that. A quarterly figure compares quarter averages and a monthly one compares single months, so a series can step slightly where the two join. The headline line is the all-groups CPI.

Update frequency

monthly

Licence

CC BY 4.0

How the score is computed

The score is a 0–100 normalisation of the latest observation, compared to a baseline window. The traffic-light rating (RAG) reflects both the absolute level and the recent trend.

Direction

Context-dependent

Trend window

24 months

Baseline

Last 10 years

{
  "neutral": true
}