Cost of living adjustments

[OFSO]

I've just received the proposed cost of living adjustment figures for *** organisations for 2024. I reproduce the list here, because the last country is interesting.

Belgium 0.5%
France 4.1%
Germany 3.8%
Italy 0.5%
Luxembourg 3.2%
Netherlands 1.0%
Spain 3.3%
United Kingdom 3.9%
Portugal 1.9%
Switzerland 2.1%
United States 3.4%

Türkiye 64.9%

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

All stats are BS these days.
Half the stuff that goes into "the cost of living" measurements is based on unrepresentative estimates or not corrrectly gathered. Quite a bit of the rest is gamed by those who do the selling (like supermarkets).
And there is virtually no one who consumes all the goods and services in the amounts that match the weightings. This especially applies to the poor in rented accommodation.
Averages are only any use when you choose the correct one and it applies to a significant proportion of the population.
And the cost of living is still irrelevant until measured in conjunction with the change in income, since it's the buying power of uncommitted income that matters to quality of life.
Furthermore, all the benefits, tax breaks, subsidies et al. all have to be considered.

For example:
The Canadian CPI has risen 20.9% in the last 3 years.
My personal CPI has dropped 10%.

Ask me how I did that!

[John Hill]

7.22% in NZ for 2023. The cost of housing is skyrocketing and the Australian owned supermarkets are re-stickering everything to such up any slack.

[OFSO]

The ministers (ministerial delegates) presiding over salary and pension adjustments make periodic attempts to revise the system to make it "fairer" i.e. to reduce payments and save money. It will suprise nobody here to learn that every such attempt has failed (basically due to unforeseen circumstances, naturally foreseen by everyone except the ministerial delegates, but we recipients kept schtum). Looking back perhaps twenty years ago to the system/method for calculating salaries and pensions ((especially pensions)) in force then, had that been left untampered with we'd have been receiving less today than we are. Ah well, politicians.

[Ex-Ascot]

The ministers (ministerial delegates) presiding over salary and pension adjustments make periodic attempts to revise the system to make it "fairer" i.e. to reduce payments and save money. It will suprise nobody here to learn that every such attempt has failed (basically due to unforeseen circumstances, naturally foreseen by everyone except the ministerial delegates, but we recipients kept schtum). Looking back perhaps twenty years ago to the system/method for calculating salaries and pensions ((especially pensions)) in force then, had that been left untampered with we'd have been receiving less today than we are. Ah well, politicians.