Prices and purchasing power
Track price changes, inflation and real incomes using consistent periods. Explain that inflation measures the rate of change, not whether a price level has returned to an earlier level.
Policy area · household budgets
What things cost.
What people can afford.
Examine prices, incomes and essential household costs over roughly 2006–2026, alongside government actions intended to ease pressure. Show how effects differ across households and avoid confusing slower price rises with prices falling.
Assessment status: Insufficient evidence. This page defines the comparisons to make; it does not yet assign credit or blame for changes in prices or living standards.
What this page will assess
Essential household costs
Examine housing, food, energy, transport, healthcare and education costs in relation to disposable income and household needs.
Income, tax and transfers
Compare wages, employment income, taxes, benefits and transfers in real terms for different household types, noting eligibility and take-up.
Who feels the pressure
Assess impacts by income, age, household composition, disability, region and tenure where data is reliable and comparable.
Actions and outcomes to document
For each intervention, identify the pressure it was designed to address, its expected reach, cost and time horizon, and observed distributional effects.
- Income, tax and transfer measuresRecord who was eligible, when measures were funded and implemented, expected versus actual fiscal cost, and estimated household effects.
- Competition, regulation and market settingsDescribe the identified market issue, intervention mechanism, evidence of implementation and effects on prices, choice or access.
- Essential services and targeted supportTrack service pricing and targeted support separately, including coverage, adequacy, unintended effects and sunset or renewal decisions.
- Household impact over timeUse real-dollar comparisons and transparent household examples or distributional analysis; explain assumptions and limitations.
Evidence to consult
Prefer underlying price and income series, official fiscal costing and transparent distributional analysis. Identify index bases and dollar years.
Do not attribute broad price or income changes to a single policy without causal evidence. State whether figures are nominal or inflation-adjusted and whose household budget they represent.