COST OF LIVING

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 October 1929, Page 5

COST OF LIVING

DOMINION STATISTICS (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, October 11. The retail, price index (Dominion weighted average) for the three food groups as at August 15 was 1567 (on the base, average prices in the four centres during the five years 1909-13— 1000), an increase of five points as compared with that for the previous month, and of 46.5 per cent, over that for July, 1914, states the Abstract of Statistics. The prices of potatoes and onions have risen slightly in most towns, causing an increase of 13 points in the index for the groceries group. Eggs are declining in price, which accounts for the fall of 9 points in the dairy products index. Meat prices are stable in some towns; they have slightly advanced in other towns; and in a few cases slight reductions have taken place. The net effect of these movements has been an increase of 5 points in the Dominion average index for meat. Expenditure- on food constitutes somewhat less than two-fifths of the expenditure of an average household. In order to present a more complete picture of movements, in retail prices generally, statistics regarding the retail prices of clothing, drapery and footwear, and miscellaneous items of family expenditure are collected at quarterly intervals, and, when combined with the indexes for food, rent and fuel and light, approximately 87 pel’ cent, of the average household expenditure is represented. The August food and fuel and light index numbers when combined with the clothing, drapery, footwear and miscellaneous items index numbers and the rent index number, give an “all groups” index 60.4 per cent, above the July, 1914, level, so that it now takes £l/12/1 on the average to purchase what could have been purchased for £1 in that month. The August indexes for the clothing and miscellaneous groups show decreases of 10 points and 1 point respectively when compared with the May figures. Food has also declined 10 points, while fuel and light remains the same as in May last. Rents have, however, increased by 13 points since the previous collection in February

thus counteracting the decrease in other items to a certain extent; the net result being a fall of 4 points in the “all groups” index since May (when the last collection was taken of clothing and miscellaneous prices).