Around 64 percent of U.S. consumers spend less on non-essentials amidst the ongoing cost of living crisis in 2023. This is according to a survey conducted by We are Social and Statista Q, which shows that rising inflation rates have caused around a similar percentage of customers to pay more attention to bargains, good deals, or offers (when going shopping). Furthermore, around 39 percent of U.S. consumers do not go out for dinner/lunch anymore to deal with the situation.

In December 2024, 11 percent of survey respondents said that the most important problem facing the United States was the high cost of living and inflation. Another 20percent said that the government and poor leadership was the most serious concern for the nation.

Inflation is generally defined as the continued increase in the average prices of goods and services in a given region. Following the extremely high global inflation experienced in the 1980s and 1990s, global inflation has been relatively stable since the turn of the millennium, usually hovering between three and five percent per year. There was a sharp increase in 2008 due to the global financial crisis now known as the Great Recession, but inflation was fairly stable throughout the 2010s, before the current inflation crisis began in 2021. Recent years Despite the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the global inflation rate fell to 3.26 percent in the pandemic's first year, before rising to 4.66 percent in 2021. This increase came as the impact of supply chain delays began to take more of an effect on consumer prices, before the Russia-Ukraine war exacerbated this further. A series of compounding issues such as rising energy and food prices, fiscal instability in the wake of the pandemic, and consumer insecurity have created a new global recession, and global inflation in 2024 is estimated to have reached 5.76 percent. This is the highest annual increase in inflation since 1996. Venezuela Venezuela is the country with the highest individual inflation rate in the world, forecast at around 200 percent in 2022. While this is figure is over 100 times larger than the global average in most years, it actually marks a decrease in Venezuela's inflation rate, which had peaked at over 65,000 percent in 2018. Between 2016 and 2021, Venezuela experienced hyperinflation due to the government's excessive spending and printing of money in an attempt to curve its already-high inflation rate, and the wave of migrants that left the country resulted in one of the largest refugee crises in recent years. In addition to its economic problems, political instability and foreign sanctions pose further long-term problems for Venezuela. While hyperinflation may be coming to an end, it remains to be seen how much of an impact this will have on the economy, how living standards will change, and how many refugees may return in the coming years.

Portugal, Canada, and the United States were the countries with the highest house price to income ratio in 2024. In all three countries, the index exceeded 130 index points, while the average for all OECD countries stood at 116.2 index points. The index measures the development of housing affordability and is calculated by dividing nominal house price by nominal disposable income per head, with 2015 set as a base year when the index amounted to 100. An index value of 120, for example, would mean that house price growth has outpaced income growth by 20 percent since 2015. How have house prices worldwide changed since the COVID-19 pandemic? House prices started to rise gradually after the global financial crisis (2007–2008), but this trend accelerated with the pandemic. The countries with advanced economies, which usually have mature housing markets, experienced stronger growth than countries with emerging economies. Real house price growth (accounting for inflation) peaked in 2022 and has since lost some of the gain. Although, many countries experienced a decline in house prices, the global house price index shows that property prices in 2023 were still substantially higher than before COVID-19. Renting vs. buying In the past, house prices have grown faster than rents. However, the home affordability has been declining notably, with a direct impact on rental prices. As people struggle to buy a property of their own, they often turn to rental accommodation. This has resulted in a growing demand for rental apartments and soaring rental prices.

Abstract

By the middle of the 1990s, Indonesia had enjoyed over three decades of remarkable social, economic, and demographic change and was on the cusp of joining the middle-income countries. Per capita income had risen more than fifteenfold since the early 1960s, from around US$50 to more than US$800. Increases in educational attainment and decreases in fertility and infant mortality over the same period reflected impressive investments in infrastructure.

In the late 1990s the economic outlook began to change as Indonesia was gripped by the economic crisis that affected much of Asia. In 1998 the rupiah collapsed, the economy went into a tailspin, and gross domestic product contracted by an estimated 12-15%-a decline rivaling the magnitude of the Great Depression.

The general trend of several decades of economic progress followed by a few years of economic downturn masks considerable variation across the archipelago in the degree both of economic development and of economic setbacks related to the crisis. In part this heterogeneity reflects the great cultural and ethnic diversity of Indonesia, which in turn makes it a rich laboratory for research on a number of individual- and household-level behaviors and outcomes that interest social scientists.

The Indonesia Family Life Survey is designed to provide data for studying behaviors and outcomes. The survey contains a wealth of information collected at the individual and household levels, including multiple indicators of economic and non-economic well-being: consumption, income, assets, education, migration, labor market outcomes, marriage, fertility, contraceptive use, health status, use of health care and health insurance, relationships among co-resident and non- resident family members, processes underlying household decision-making, transfers among family members and participation in community activities. In addition to individual- and household-level information, the IFLS provides detailed information from the communities in which IFLS households are located and from the facilities that serve residents of those communities. These data cover aspects of the physical and social environment, infrastructure, employment opportunities, food prices, access to health and educational facilities, and the quality and prices of services available at those facilities. By linking data from IFLS households to data from their communities, users can address many important questions regarding the impact of policies on the lives of the respondents, as well as document the effects of social, economic, and environmental change on the population.

The Indonesia Family Life Survey complements and extends the existing survey data available for Indonesia, and for developing countries in general, in a number of ways.

First, relatively few large-scale longitudinal surveys are available for developing countries. IFLS is the only large-scale longitudinal survey available for Indonesia. Because data are available for the same individuals from multiple points in time, IFLS affords an opportunity to understand the dynamics of behavior, at the individual, household and family and community levels. In IFLS1 7,224 households were interviewed, and detailed individual-level data were collected from over 22,000 individuals. In IFLS2, 94.4% of IFLS1 households were re-contacted (interviewed or died). In IFLS3 the re-contact rate was 95.3% of IFLS1 households. Indeed nearly 91% of IFLS1 households are complete panel households in that they were interviewed in all three waves, IFLS1, 2 and 3. These re-contact rates are as high as or higher than most longitudinal surveys in the United States and Europe. High re-interview rates were obtained in part because we were committed to tracking and interviewing individuals who had moved or split off from the origin IFLS1 households. High re-interview rates contribute significantly to data quality in a longitudinal survey because they lessen the risk of bias due to nonrandom attrition in studies using the data.

Second, the multipurpose nature of IFLS instruments means that the data support analyses of interrelated issues not possible with single-purpose surveys. For example, the availability of data on household consumption together with detailed individual data on labor market outcomes, health outcomes and on health program availability and quality at the community level means that one can examine the impact of income on health outcomes, but also whether health in turn affects incomes.

Third, IFLS collected both current and retrospective information on most topics. With data from multiple points of time on current status and an extensive array of retrospective information about the lives of respondents, analysts can relate dynamics to events that occurred in the past. For example, changes in labor outcomes in recent years can be explored as a function of earlier decisions about schooling and work.

Fourth, IFLS collected extensive measures of health status, including self-reported measures of general health status, morbidity experience, and physical assessments conducted by a nurse (height, weight, head circumference, blood pressure, pulse, waist and hip circumference, hemoglobin level, lung capacity, and time required to repeatedly rise from a sitting position). These data provide a much richer picture of health status than is typically available in household surveys. For example, the data can be used to explore relationships between socioeconomic status and an array of health outcomes.

Fifth, in all waves of the survey, detailed data were collected about respondents¹ communities and public and private facilities available for their health care and schooling. The facility data can be combined with household and individual data to examine the relationship between, for example, access to health services (or changes in access) and various aspects of health care use and health status.

Sixth, because the waves of IFLS span the period from several years before the economic crisis hit Indonesia, to just prior to it hitting, to one year and then three years after, extensive research can be carried out regarding the living conditions of Indonesian households during this very tumultuous period. In sum, the breadth and depth of the longitudinal information on individuals, households, communities, and facilities make IFLS data a unique resource for scholars and policymakers interested in the processes of economic development.

Geographic coverage

National coverage

Analysis unit

• Communities
• Facilities
• Households
• Individuals

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

Because it is a longitudinal survey, the IFLS3 drew its sample from IFLS1, IFLS2, IFLS2+. The IFLS1 sampling scheme stratified on provinces and urban/rural location, then randomly sampled within these strata (see Frankenberg and Karoly, 1995, for a detailed description). Provinces were selected to maximize representation of the population, capture the cultural and socioeconomic diversity of Indonesia, and be cost-effective to survey given the size and terrain of the country. For mainly costeffectiveness reasons, 14 of the then existing 27 provinces were excluded. The resulting sample included 13 of Indonesia's 27 provinces containing 83% of the population: four provinces on Sumatra (North Sumatra, West Sumatra, South Sumatra, and Lampung), all five of the Javanese provinces (DKI Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, DI Yogyakarta, and East Java), and four provinces covering the remaining major island groups (Bali, West Nusa Tenggara, South Kalimantan, and South Sulawesi).

Household Survey:

Within each of the 13 provinces, enumeration areas (EAs) were randomly chosen from a nationally representative sample frame used in the 1993 SUSENAS, a socioeconomic survey of about 60,000 households. The IFLS randomly selected 321 enumeration areas in the 13 provinces, over-sampling urban EAs and EAs in smaller provinces to facilitate urban-rural and Javanese-non-Javanese comparisons.

Within a selected EA, households were randomly selected based upon 1993 SUSENAS listings obtained from regional BPS office. A household was defined as a group of people whose members reside in the same dwelling and share food from the same cooking pot (the standard BPS definition). Twenty households were selected from each urban EA, and 30 households were selected from each rural EA.This strategy minimized expensive travel between rural EAs while balancing the costs of correlations among households. For IFLS1 a total of 7,730 households were sampled to obtain a final sample size goal of 7,000 completed households. This strategy was based on BPS experience of about 90% completion rates. In fact, IFLS1 exceeded that target and interviews were conducted with 7,224 households in late 1993 and early 1994.

IFLS3 Re-Contact Protocols The sampling approach in IFLS3 was to re-contact all original IFLS1 households having living members the last time they had been contacted, plus split-off households from both IFLS2 and IFLS2+, so-called target households (8,347 households-as shown in Table 2.1*) Main field work for IFLS3 went on from June through November, 2000. A total of 10,574 households were contacted in 2000; meaning that they were interviewed, had all members died since the last time they were contacted, or had joined another IFLS household which had been previously interviewed (Table 2.1*). Of these, 7,928 were IFLS3 target households and 2,646 were new split-off households. A 95.0% re-contact rate was thus achieved of all IFLS3 "target" households. The re-contacted households included 6,800 original 1993 households, or 95.3% of those. Of IFLS1 households, somewhat lower re-contact rates were achieved in Jakarta, 84.5%, and North Sumatra,

Out of all 50 states, New York had the highest per-capita real gross domestic product (GDP) in 2024, at 92,341 U.S. dollars, followed closely by Massachusetts. Mississippi had the lowest per-capita real GDP, at 41,603 U.S. dollars. While not a state, the District of Columbia had a per capita GDP of more than 210,780 U.S. dollars. What is real GDP? A country’s real GDP is a measure that shows the value of the goods and services produced by an economy and is adjusted for inflation. The real GDP of a country helps economists to see the health of a country’s economy and its standard of living. Downturns in GDP growth can indicate financial difficulties, such as the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, when the U.S. GDP decreased by 2.5 percent. The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on U.S. GDP, shrinking the economy 2.8 percent. The U.S. economy rebounded in 2021, however, growing by nearly six percent. Why real GDP per capita matters Real GDP per capita takes the GDP of a country, state, or metropolitan area and divides it by the number of people in that area. Some argue that per-capita GDP is more important than the GDP of a country, as it is a good indicator of whether or not the country’s population is getting wealthier, thus increasing the standard of living in that area. The best measure of standard of living when comparing across countries is thought to be GDP per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) which uses the prices of specific goods to compare the absolute purchasing power of a countries currency.

The statistic shows the gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States from 1987 to 2024, with projections up until 2030. The gross domestic product of the United States in 2024 amounted to around 29.18 trillion U.S. dollars. The United States and the economy The United States’ economy is by far the largest in the world; a status which can be determined by several key factors, one being gross domestic product: A look at the GDP of the main industrialized and emerging countries shows a significant difference between US GDP and the GDP of China, the runner-up in the ranking, as well as the followers Japan, Germany and France. Interestingly, it is assumed that China will have surpassed the States in terms of GDP by 2030, but for now, the United States is among the leading countries in almost all other relevant rankings and statistics, trade and employment for example. See the U.S. GDP growth rate here. Just like in other countries, the American economy suffered a severe setback when the economic crisis occurred in 2008. The American economy entered a recession caused by the collapsing real estate market and increasing unemployment. Despite this, the standard of living is considered quite high; life expectancy in the United States has been continually increasing slightly over the past decade, the unemployment rate in the United States has been steadily recovering and decreasing since the crisis, and the Big Mac Index, which represents the global prices for a Big Mac, a popular indicator for the purchasing power of an economy, shows that the United States’ purchasing power in particular is only slightly lower than that of the euro area.