ONS calculation of inflation by income bands

FOI Reference: FOI/2022/4235

You asked

1) Do you calculate the inflation rates as adjusted for the various income bands within the UK? These would reflect that the lower the income the greater the portion is spent on essentials.

2) If so would you share:

        a) the methodology, and;

        b) the data generated?

We said

Thank you for your query on whether we calculate inflation rates by income bands. We recently published the 'CPIH-consistent inflation rate estimates for UK household groups' which produces estimates of inflation rates for different types of household in the UK on a Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH)-consistent basis, of which income deciles were included. The data and methodology for this can be found in the below links.

We have also published another article and dataset that may be of interest, Household Costs Indices, UK: fourth preliminary estimates, which are experimental statistics that aim to measure UK households' experience of changing prices and costs, broken down by different types of households including income decile. Our most recent release is linked below which also includes sections on the methodology used.

CPIH-consistent inflation rate estimates for UK household groups

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/articles/cpihconsistentinflationrateestimatesforukhouseholdgroups20052017/latest

CPIH-consistent inflation rate estimates -- methodology

Methodology to calculate CPIH-consistent inflation rates for UK household groups - Office for National Statistics

Household Costs Indices, UK: fourth preliminary estimates

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/bulletins/householdcostsindices/householdcostsindicesukfourthpreliminaryestimates2005to2021