Why higher-spending households are under the most price pressure

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Higher-spending households are still feeling the biggest cost-of-living squeeze, but that may change next year, one economist says.

The latest household cost price indexes show a 5.4 percent increase in costs in the 12 months to June, down from as 6.2 percent increase in the 12 months to March.

That is ahead of the rate of inflation as measured by the consumer price index, which was 3.3 percent in the June quarter.

The household cost price indexes show how inflation affects 13 different household groups, and a key difference from the CPI is that it includes the impact of interest payments. The CPI only includes the cost of building a new home.

“Mortgage interest payments remain high, and continue to make a significant contribution to living costs for many households,” consumer prices manager James Mitchell said.

Interest payments increased 26.7 percent in the 12 months to the June 2024 quarter.

The data showed beneficiary households had costs up 4.5 percent, with rent up 5.1 percent, private transport up 12.8 percent and interest payments up 25.2 percent.

Stats NZ said rent took up 29 percent of beneficiary household expenditure, compared to 13 percent for an average household.

Superannuitant households had costs up 4.6 percent, with insurance up 19.8 percent, private transport up 12.9 percent and rates up 9.7.

For the highest-spending households, costs were up 5.6 percent, driven by interest payments up 27 percent, private transport up 12.9 percent and insurance up 16.5 percent.

ASB economist Kim Mundy said it was interest and insurance that was putting the most pressure on the highest-spending households’ costs.

She said interest rates were likely to keep the household cost price indexes higher than the CPI for now.

“We don’t expect the effective mortgage rate will peak until early 2025 as there are still households out there who will roll on to higher mortgage rates in the coming months. And when OCR cuts do come, that can take a while to flow through to a lower effective mortgage rate, given that most households tend to fix for one or two years.”

Council of Trade Unions policy director and economist Craig Renney said: “In terms of what’s the cause going on here, it’s very much mortgage interest – that’s because we’re measuring incomes rather than debt. Higher-income households when they own property tend to be more highly geared.”

He said historically, until the most recent escalation of interest rates, costs were increasing much faster for beneficiary and superannuitant households.

“As that [interest rate increase] reverses we’ll probably go back to the story of costs being higher for those on low incomes. It costs a lot of money to be poor. That will likely see a return to that story.”