The latest inflation figures delivered both the good news that inflation is below 3% for the first time since early 2021 and the sense that it won’t be enough to have the Reserve Bank cut rates next week.
Back in March 2021 we were still watching weekly Covid press conferences, we had begun the slow rollout of the vaccination, and it was also the last time prices were growing by less than 3%. Until now.
In the September quarter annual inflation rose just 2.8%, with the underlying trimmed mean (that removes the big falls and rises) measure growing 3.5% – the slowest since the end of 2021:
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This is good news.
There will be a lot of chin-scratching and a lot of “yes, however …” and “you also have to consider …” but let us just take a step back and realise that the Reserve Bank targets inflation of between 2% and 3% and we are now there and that unemployment is still at very decent levels of 4.1%.
That, my friends, is good.
At this point though I can feel some economists rushing to the microphone to tell us that really this doesn’t count. It’s a fake figure – it is just “measured inflation” – because one of the main reasons inflation is below 3% is the energy rebates.
And that is true.
Without the rebates electricity prices would have fallen over the past year by 2.7% instead of 15.8%.
Given electricity contributed to a nearly 0.4%pt fall in inflation over the past year, if you cancel that out, overall CPI growth would likely have been closer to 3.2%:
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But here’s the thing, there is no “real” inflation. All we have is “measured” inflation. The Bureau of Statistics calculates the average prices growth of all goods and services paid Australians regardless of what caused those price falls or rises.
Do we not count the fall in petrol prices, because as pretty much is always the case those prices fell because the world price of oil fell?
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Do we exclude tobacco prices because the only reason they increase in government excises – because demand for them keeps falling as people smoke less and less, and yet they were the third-biggest contributor to CPI in the past year?
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Some economists don’t like admitting that government can actually help keep prices down temporarily, and that we don’t need to leave everything to the Reserve Bank. They might like to believe there is some mythical free economy out there untouched by regulations and interventions and in which all businesses compete fiercely and where prices only react to the forces of demand and supply.
But here in the real world inflation grew 2.8% in the past year.
Even better, the monthly inflation measure, which is less comprehensive than the quarterly figures had inflation rise just 2.1%.
And while it would be easy to dismiss that as not counting as many things as does the quarterly survey, the monthly and quarterly figures move in almost perfect sync:
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And before we go any further we need to also acknowledge that inflation does not count the biggest increase in cost of living over the past two year – that of mortgage rates.
And if any economist starts talking about “measured inflation” remind them that until 1998 the CPI did measure mortgage repayments.
The good news is the 2.8% figure is not only due to electricity rebates. For the first time since 2021, more than half of the prices of the 87 items listed in the CPI basket rose by less than 3%:
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So why isn’t the RBA likely to cut rates next week?
I suspect the RBA will point to the continued high price growth of services.
In the past year service prices rose on average by 4.6% – well above the long-term average of 3%. The Reserve Bank always likes to focus on service price because historically there has been a link between wages growing up and service prices.
So, if service prices are growing fast that can be a sign that wages are growing too fast, causing there to be “excess demand” in the economy because we all apparently have too much money.
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But we’re not really seeing that here.
Wage growth is predicted to fall over next year and the major “services” that are driving price growth are rents (yes it’s classed as a service), financial services, insurance, and medical and hospital services, none of which are either largely affected by wage growth or excess demand. Only restaurant meals are strongly linked with labour, and yet even the price growth of those are slowing:
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So what can we say from all of this?
Clearly the government’s actions to lower inflation have worked. The consumer price index is below 3%. Underlying inflation is also falling and despite low unemployment there has been no wages breakout.
The RBA, perhaps annoyed that it has been shown up as not the only organisation in town that can influence prices, will most likely not take this as a sign that it can lower rates.
While there might not be a rate cut on Melbourne Cup Day the next move is almost certainly going to be a cut. And the longer we have figures showing the prices of an increasing share of items in the CPI basket are growing by less than 3%, the greater the pressure will be for the RBA to cut rates and deliver real cost of living relief.
Greg Jericho is a Guardian columnist and policy director at the Centre for Future Work
