Podcast - What is CPI? Understanding inflation statistics

Description

FAI economist Hannah Randolph is joined by Luke Michaelides and Phil Gooding from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Consumer Prices team to talk about inflation statistics. We cover what measures of inflation are produced by ONS, how they differ, and recent developments in methodology and the data underlying the statistics. We end by discussing how inflation rates impact households and businesses.

The ONS personal inflation rate calculator can be found here.

The FAI’s report for ONS on further development options for the Household Costs Indices can be found here.

(1:00) What are the different measures of inflation produced by ONS? How do they differ?

(2:25) What are the Household Costs Indices and what do they say about how inflation affects different groups?

(5:25) What types of data are used to produce these inflation measures?

(7:20) How have the methods of collecting data for and calculating inflation changed?

(10:20) What do changes in the inflation rate mean for households and businesses? What should people keep in mind when they hear about inflation on the news?