THE COST OF LIVING.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 213, 8 September 1926, Page 8

THE COST OF LIVING.

PRICES IN JULY.

FOOD GROUPS LOWEE

In the "Monthly Abstract of Statistics" the Acting Government Statistician, Mr. J. W. Butcher, states that the retail price index (Dominion weighted average) for the three food groups as at June 15, was 1597 (on the basis of average prices for the four chief centres during the years 1909-13—1000), a decrease of 23 points as compared with the index number for the preceding month, and an increase of 49.3 per cent over that for July, 1914, viz., 1070.

Expenditure on food constitutes somewhat less than two-fifths of the total expenditure of the average household. It is necessary, therefore, to take into account other groups of household expenditure in estimating price movements. Statistics regarding retail prices of clothing and drapery, footwear, furnishings, household ironmongery and other miscellaneous items of family expenditure have, therefore, been collected as at May 15, and combined with the indexes for food and fuel and light for July and the rent index for February (the latest available figure) in their proper proportions; the resultant "all groups" price index showing a level of 61.4 per cent over that for July, 1914. It now takes 32/3J on the average to purchase what 20/ would purchase in the month preceding the outbreak of the Great War.