Inflation rose steadily across the board for all households over the past quarter, Stats NZ says.
High prices for transport and food drove up for the 'all households group', which represents all private New Zealand resident households.
Inflation for this group, as measured by the household living costs prices indexes (HLPIs), increased by 1.1 percent in the June 2021 quarter.
Each quarter, the HLPIs calculate how inflation affects 13 different groups of people, while the consumer price index calculates how inflation affects New Zealand as a whole.
In the June 2021 quarter, all 13 groups experienced inflation between 1 and 1.2 percent. Transport prices were up by 2.8 percent for the all households group in the June 2021 quarter, which was mainly influenced by higher petrol prices.
Stats NZ says this affected low to middle-income earners the most. Transport prices were up 3.1 percent for the lowest-spending group compared with 2.3 percent for the highest-spending group.
Stats NZ consumer prices manager Matthew Stansfield says this is because low to middle-income groups typically spend more on petrol and public transport.
Food prices increased 1.5 percent for the all households group in the June 2021 quarter, which was mainly influenced by higher vegetable prices.
For Māori households, quarterly inflation increased 1 percent in the June 2021 quarter, primarily due to rising transport prices (up 3 percent), housing and household utilities (up 0.9 percent), and food (up 1.3 percent).
"Higher prices for petrol, rent, and vegetables drove up inflation for Māori households, and were also large drivers in many other household groups," Stansfield says.
But the biggest inflation increase was for beneficiaries, up 3 percent in the year ended June 2021. This was mainly influenced by higher prices for housing and household utilities.
"On average, beneficiary households spend almost a third of their income on rent, so rising rents have a bigger impact on beneficiary households than for the other household groups," Stansfield says.
The big driver of rising inflation over the past year was transport. To June 2021, annual inflation for the all households group was up 2.5 percent - the largest annual increase since September 2011. The increase was mainly influenced by higher prices for private transport supplies and services, and rentals for housing.
"A year ago, in the June 2020 quarter, we saw lower petrol prices and also many public transport services being free around the country during the COVID-19 lockdown," Stansfield says.
Transport prices have increased 11 percent for the all households group, while prices for the highest-spending households increased 8.6 percent compared with 12 percent for the lowest-spending households.
The most recent consumer price index found annual inflation to be 3.3 percent, compared with 2.5 percent for the all households group in the HLPIs. Stats NZ says these calculations differ in the treatment of housing.
The CPI is primarily used for monetary policy, while HLPI measures the cost of living. In the HLPIs, mortgage interest payments decreased 7.7 percent for the all households group in the year to June 2021.
