China News Service, May 17. According to Taiwan's "Central News Agency" report, Taiwan's "General Accounting Office" data shows that the level of household income will also affect the perception of prices. Taiwan's low- and middle-income households spend on food in the hardest hit areas of the price hike. The higher the proportion, the most sensitive to price increases.
According to the monthly consumer price inflation rate (CPI) released by Taiwan's "General Accounting Office", the inflation warning line of 2% has been repeatedly exceeded last year. It climbed to 3.38%, the largest increase in more than 9.5 years.
The "General Accounting Office" pointed out that compared with middle- and high-income households, the CPI of low-income households rose significantly higher, mainly due to the higher proportion of food expenditures with larger increases.
Judging from the 3.38% annual increase of CPI in April, observing the consumer price index by income level, the CPI of high-income households increased by 3.18% annually, which is lower than the overall average; Both are higher than the average, indicating that low- and middle-income households are more sensitive to rising prices, and low-income households are the most affected households affected by inflation.
The "General Accounting Office" explained that, depending on the type of income and consumption expenditure, there will be gaps in the various weights of the CPI at each income level.
For low-income households, the weight of food category reached 28.4%, affecting the overall index by 2.08 percentage points; the weight of food category for high-income households dropped to 21.4%, affecting only 1.37 percentage points of the overall index.
The officials of the "General Accounting Office" explained that the large increase in food categories, the high frequency of purchases, and the heavier weight in low-income households naturally made low-income households feel relatively deeply about this wave of price increases.
The "General Accounting Office" official added that fuel costs are also a major driving force for this wave of price increases, although from the perspective of weight, the weight of transportation and communications in high-income households is 15.9%, higher than the middle and low income 12.7% %, 10.5%, but high-income households may not care too much about gas costs.
In contrast, low-income office workers ride bicycles, drive to commute, and refuel regularly are also a cost. Seeing the high oil prices, they can only sigh that their purses (purses) are getting thinner again.