Rising costs hitting low and middle income earners hardest

Council of Trade Unions economist Dr Bill Rosenberg says that inflation doesn’t really show the full price rises faced by low income households, and that lower income people are hardest hit by increased costs.
Rosenberg explains that they are hit differently because a bigger proportion of low income’s people’s spending goes on necessities than it does for high income people.
The 30 percent of households with the lowest income spend 15.1 percent of their expenditure on fruit, vegetables, meat and fish, and grocery food. The top 30 percent in terms of income spend only 10.9 percent of their spending on these items. When it comes to housing, low income people spend 30.7 percent of their expenditure, while high income people spend only 23.6 percent on housing.
Worth thinking about, if people claim that the tax cuts compensated for inflation and GST rises – maybe not, for those on a low or middle income!

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