Resources for realistic inflation figures 27 June 2022 at 11:53PM in Employment, jobseeking & training 4 replies 153 views

rigolith

The official inflation number is around 9-10%, but we all know that's fiddled by the government to look good. What resources are available for realistic figures?

I remember the BBC had a personal inflation calculator, but it hasn't been updated since 2010. Anything current like that?

I will need to evaluate the offer my employer makes, and decide if it's time to move on.

Marcon

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/articles/howisinflationaffectingyourhouseholdcosts/2022-03-23

You enter the numbers, so you control the outcome!

rigolith

Thanks. I put my numbers in and it's looking pretty grim.

Linton

rigolith said:

The official inflation number is around 9-10%, but we all know that's fiddled by the government to look good. What resources are available for realistic figures?

I remember the BBC had a personal inflation calculator, but it hasn't been updated since 2010. Anything current like that?

I will need to evaluate the offer my employer makes, and decide if it's time to move on.

CPI is not fiddled by the government to look good.  It is calculated by professional statisticians in the ONS.  Think about it - if every year's inflation figure was under reported the cumulative effect over a decade or more would be very high and easily shown to be wrong.  Generating non-contradictory fiddled figures is a lot more difficult than simply using real ones.

Whether a figure is realistic for you is dependent on your spending pattern.

I have been keeping detailed data on my day to day spending for the past 17 years.  Overall the increase is very close to that indicated by the CPI.

ReadingTim

The "fiddle" is which measure is used (i.e. CPI vs RPI) not how each measure is calculated.