Are older Australians being short changed? An analysis of household living costs.

Abstract

In this report, the authors examine how well the consumer price index (CPI) measures inflation for the overall Australian community and how living cost pressures are being distributed throughout the population. They focus mainly on older Australian households (those with the head aged 50 years and over) as many of these households are on low incomes, and spend a large proportion of their budget on essential living cost (“non-discretionary”) items.