COST OF LIVING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19966, 7 December 1926, Page 10

COST OF LIVING.

RETAIL PRICE INDEX. REDUCTION DURING NOVEMBER. (Special to Daily Times.) WELLINGTON, December 6. The Monthly Abstract of Statistics just issued gives some interesting particulars of the prices of commodities affecting household accounts. The retail price index (Dominion weighted average) for the three food groups as at October 15 was 1569 (on tho base average prices in the four chief centres during the years 1909H3 equal to 1000), a decrease of 14 points since the previous month. This index number shows an increase of 46.4 per cent, over that for July. 1914. . L . , The recent increase in the price of sugar has accounted for the 9-point rise in the index number for the groceries group. In the majority of towns the summer prices of milk are in operation, with similar reductions in the price of butter, although eggs show a tendency to increase in price as the Christmas season approaches, the net result being that the index number for dairy produce has fallen 47 points. . Mutton has been somewhat reduced in price and also beef, but to a lesser extent, and this has resulted in a decrease of 20 points in the index number of meat prices. A comparison with indices for October, 1925, shows the following differences: Groceries 2 points increase, mostly due to alterations in sugar prices; dairy produce a decrease of 96 points, again due to earlier seasonal reductions in the price of milk; meat 192 points decrease. Meat had reached almost its peak prices last October. This year it is showing a general and continued reduction, . _ . Tho index number for the combined food groups showed a reduction of 87 points during the 12 months. The expenditure on food constitutes'somewhat loss than twofifths of the expenditure of the average household. It is necessary, therefore, to take into account other groups of household expenditure in estimating price movements. Statistics regarding house rents, the retail prices of clothing and drapery, footwear, furnishings, household ironmongery, ana other miscellaneous items of family expenditure have, therefore, been collected as at August 15, and combined with the index for fuel and light (the October, 1926, price index for fuel and light on the base average of the years 1909-13 was 1855, being a decrease of 1 point over the corresponding fin-ure for the previous month) for October in their proper proportions The resultant “all groups” price index shows a level of 62 3 per cent, over that for July. 1914. it now takes 32s 4d on the average to purchase what 20s would purchase in that month,