The UK inflation rate was 3.5 percent in April 2025, up from 2.6 percent in the previous month, and the fastest rate of inflation since February 2024. Between September 2022 and March 2023, the UK experienced seven months of double-digit inflation, which peaked at 11.1 percent in October 2022. Due to this long period of high inflation, UK consumer prices have increased by over 20 percent in the last three years. As of the most recent month, prices were rising fastest in the communications sector, at 6.1 percent, but were falling in both the furniture and transport sectors, at -0.3 percent and -0.6 percent respectively.
The Cost of Living Crisis High inflation is one of the main factors behind the ongoing Cost of Living Crisis in the UK, which, despite subsiding somewhat in 2024, is still impacting households going into 2025. In December 2024, for example, 56 percent of UK households reported their cost of living was increasing compared with the previous month, up from 45 percent in July, but far lower than at the height of the crisis in 2022. After global energy prices spiraled that year, the UK's energy price cap increased substantially. The cap, which limits what suppliers can charge consumers, reached 3,549 British pounds per year in October 2022, compared with 1,277 pounds a year earlier. Along with soaring food costs, high-energy bills have hit UK households hard, especially lower income ones that spend more of their earnings on housing costs. As a result of these factors, UK households experienced their biggest fall in living standards in decades in 2022/23. Global inflation crisis causes rapid surge in prices The UK's high inflation, and cost of living crisis in 2022 had its origins in the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the initial waves of the virus, global supply chains struggled to meet the renewed demand for goods and services. Food and energy prices, which were already high, increased further in 2022. Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 brought an end to the era of cheap gas flowing to European markets from Russia. The war also disrupted global food markets, as both Russia and Ukraine are major exporters of cereal crops. As a result of these factors, inflation surged across Europe and in other parts of the world, but typically declined in 2023, and approached more usual levels by 2024.

Average weekly earnings for the whole economy, for total and regular pay, in real terms (adjusted for consumer price inflation), UK, monthly, seasonally adjusted.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Households Below Average Income (HBAI) data presents information on living standards in the UK based on household income measures for the financial year.

HBAI uses equivalised disposable household income as a proxy for living standards in order to allow comparisons of the living standards of different types of households (that is, income is adjusted to take into account variations in the size and composition of the households in a process known as equivalisation). A key assumption made in HBAI is that all individuals in the household benefit equally from the combined income of the household. This enables the total equivalised income of the household to be used as a proxy for the standard of living of each household member.

In line with international best practice, the income measures used in HBAI are subject to several statistical adjustments and, as such, are not always directly relatable to income amounts as they might be understood by people on a day-to-day basis. These adjustments, however, allow consistent comparison over time and across households of different sizes and compositions. HBAI uses variants of CPI inflation when estimating how incomes are changing in real terms over time.

The main data source used in this study is the Family Resources Survey (FRS), a continuous cross-sectional survey. The FRS normally has a sample of 19,000 - 20,000 UK households. The use of survey data means that HBAI estimates are subject to uncertainty, which can affect how changes should be interpreted, especially in the short term. Analysis of geographies below the regional level is not recommended from this data.

Further information and the latest publication can be found on the gov.uk HBAI webpage. The HBAI team want to provide user-friendly datasets and clearer documentation, so please contact team.hbai@dwp.gov.uk if you have any suggestions or feedback on the new harmonised datasets and documentation.

An earlier HBAI study, Institute for Fiscal Studies Households Below Average Income Dataset, 1961-1991, is held under SN 3300.

Latest Edition Information

For the 19th edition (April 2025), resamples data have been added to the study alongside supporting documentation. Main data back to 1994/95 have been updated to latest-year prices, and the documentation has been updated accordingly.

Using the HBAI files

Users should note that either 7-Zip or a recent version of WinZip is needed to unzip the HBAI download zip files, due to their size. The inbuilt Windows compression software will not handle them correctly.

Labelling of variables
Users should note that many variables across the resamples files do not include full variable or value labels. This information can be found easily in the documentation - see the Harmonised Data Variables Guide.

HBAI versions

The HBAI datasets are available in two versions at the UKDS:

1. End User Licence (EUL) (Anonymised) Datasets:

These datasets contain no names, addresses, telephone numbers, bank account details, NINOs or any personal details that can be considered disclosive under the terms of the ONS Disclosure Control guidance. Changes made to the datasets are as follows:

• All ages above 80 are instead top-coded to 80 years of age.
• The variable for the amount of Council Tax liability for the household and pensioner flags for the head and spouse have been removed.
• All amount variables have been rounded to the nearest £1.
• A very small number of large households (with 10 or more individuals) have been removed from the dataset.

2. Secure Access Datasets:

Secure Access datasets for HBAI are held under SN 7196. The Secure Access data are not subject to the same edits as the EUL version and are, therefore, more disclosive and subject to strict access conditions. They are currently only available to UK HE/FE applicants. Prospective users of the Secure Access version of the HBAI must fulfil additional requirements beyond those associated with the EUL datasets.

Main Topics:

The HBAI data provide information on potential living standards in the United Kingdom as determined by net (equivalised) disposable income and allows for the analysis of changes in income patterns over time.

People in Great Britain's experiences of and actions following increases in their costs of living, and how these differed by a range of personal characteristics.

Abstract

In 2001, the World Bank in co-operation with the Republika Srpska Institute of Statistics (RSIS), the Federal Institute of Statistics (FOS) and the Agency for Statistics of BiH (BHAS), carried out a Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS).

The Living Standard Measurement Survey LSMS, in addition to collecting the information necessary to obtain a comprehensive as possible measure of the basic dimensions of household living standards, has three basic objectives, as follows:

1. To provide the public sector, government, the business community, scientific institutions, international donor organizations and social organizations with information on different indicators of the population's living conditions, as well as on available resources for satisfying basic needs.

2. To provide information for the evaluation of the results of different forms of government policy and programs developed with the aim to improve the population's living standard. The survey will enable the analysis of the relations between and among different aspects of living standards (housing, consumption, education, health, labor) at a given time, as well as within a household.

3. To provide key contributions for development of government's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, based on analyzed data.

The Department for International Development, UK (DFID) contributed funding to the LSMS and provided funding for a further three years of data collection for a panel survey, known as the Household Survey Panel Series (HSPS) – and more popularly known as Living in BiH (LiBiH). Birks Sinclair & Associates Ltd. in cooperation with the Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues (IBHI) were responsible for the management of the HSPS with technical advice and support provided by the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER), University of Essex, UK.

The panel survey provides longitudinal data through re-interviewing approximately half the LSMS respondents for three years following the LSMS, in the autumns of 2002 and 2003 and the winter of 2004. The LSMS constitutes Wave 1 of the panel survey so there are four years of panel data available for analysis. For the purposes of this documentation we are using the following convention to describe the different rounds of the panel survey: - Wave 1 LSMS conducted in 2001 forms the baseline survey for the panel - Wave 2 Second interview of 50% of LSMS respondents in Autumn/Winter 2002 - Wave 3 Third interview with sub-sample respondents in Autumn/Winter 2003 - Wave 4 Fourth interview with sub-sample respondents in Winter 2004

The panel data allows the analysis of key transitions and events over this period such as labour market or geographical mobility and observations on the consequent outcomes for the well-being of individuals and households in the survey. The panel data provides information on income and labour market dynamics within FBiH and RS. A key policy area is developing strategies for the reduction of poverty within FBiH and RS. The panel will provide information on the extent to which continuous poverty and movements in an out of poverty are experienced by different types of households and individuals over the four year period. Most importantly, the co-variates associated with moves into and out of poverty and the relative risks of poverty for different people can be assessed. As such, the panel aims to provide data, which will inform the policy debates within BiH at a time of social reform and rapid change.

In order to develop base line (2004) data on poverty, incomes and socio-economic conditions, and to begin to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the BiH MTDS, EPPU commissioned this modified fourth round of the LiBiH Panel Survey.

Geographic coverage

National coverage. Domains: Urban/rural/mixed; Federation; Republic

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

The Wave 4 sample comprised of 2882 households interviewed at Wave 3 (1309 in the RS and 1573 in FBiH). As at previous waves, sample households could not be replaced with any other households.

Panel design

Eligibility for inclusion

The household and household membership definitions assume the same standard definitions used at Wave 3. While the sample membership, status and eligibility for interview are as follows: i) All members of households interviewed at Wave 3 have been designated as original sample members (OSMs). OSMs include children within households even if they are too young for interview, i.e. younger than 15 years. ii) Any new members joining a household containing at least one OSM, are eligible for inclusion and are designated as new sample members (NSMs). iii) At each wave, all OSMs and NSMs are eligible for inclusion, apart from those who move outof-scope (see discussion below). iv) All household members aged 15 or over are eligible for interview, including OSMs and NSMs.

Following rules

The panel design provides that sample members who move from their previous wave address must be traced and followed to their new address for interview. In some cases the whole household will move together but in other cases an individual member may move away from their previous wave household and form a new "split-off" household of their own. All sample members, OSMs and NSMs, are followed at each wave and an interview attempted. This method has the benefits of maintaining the maximum number of respondents within the panel and being relatively straightforward to implement in the field.

Definition of 'out-of-scope'

It is important to maintain movers within the sample to maintain sample sizes and reduce attrition and also for substantive research on patterns of geographical mobility and migration. The rules for determining when a respondent is 'out-of-scope' are:

i. Movers out of the country altogether i.e. outside BiH This category of mover is clear. Sample members moving to another country outside BiH will be out-of-scope for that year of the survey and ineligible for interview.

ii. Movers between entities Respondents moving between entities are followed for interview. Personal details of "movers" are passed between the statistical institutes and an interviewer assigned in that entity.

iii. Movers into institutions Although institutional addresses were not included in the original LSMS sample, Wave 4 individuals who have subsequently moved into some institutions are followed. The definitions for which institutions are included are found in the Supervisor Instructions.

iv. Movers into the district of Brcko
Are followed for interview. When coding, Brcko is treated as the entity from which the household moved.

Feed-forward

Details of the address at which respondents were found in the previous wave, together with a listing of household members found in each household at the last wave were fed-forward as the starting point for Wave 4 fieldwork. This "feed-forward" data also includes key variables required for correctly identifying individual sample members and includes the following: - For each household: Household ID (IDD); Full address details and phone number - For each Original Sample Member: Name; Person number (ID); unique personal identifier (LID); Sex; Date of birth

The sample details are held in an Access database and in order to ensure the confidentiality of respondents, personal details, names and addresses are held separately from the survey data collected during fieldwork. The IDD, LID and ID are the key linking variables between the two databases i.e. the name and address database and the survey database.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

Approximately 70% of the questionnaire was based on the Wave 3 questionnaire, carrying forward core measures in order to measure change over time. However in order to develop base line (2004) data on poverty, incomes and socio-economic conditions, and to begin to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the BiHDS the Wave 4 questionnaire additionally contained the Wave 1 Consumption module and a few other LSMS items to allow direct comparability with the Wave 1 data.

Cleaning operations

Dat entry

As at previous waves, CSPro was the chosen data entry software. The CSPro program consists of two main features intended to reduce the number of keying errors and to reduce the editing required following data entry:
- Data entry screens that included all skip patterns. - Range checks for each question (allowing three exceptions for inappropriate, don't know and missing codes).

The Wave 4 data entry program had similar checks to the Wave 3 program - and DE staff were instructed to clear all anomalies with SIG fieldwork members. The program was tested prior to the commencement of data entry. Twelve data entry staff were employed in each Field Office, as all had worked on previous waves training was not undertaken.

Editing

Instructions for editing were provided in the Supervisors Instructions. At Wave 4 supervisors were asked to take more time to edit every questionnaire returned by their interviewers. The SIG Fieldwork Managers examined every Control Form.

Response rate

The level of cases that were unable to be traced is extremely low as are the whole household refusal or non-contact rates. In total, 9128 individuals (including children) were enumerated within the sample households at Wave 4, 5019 individuals in the FBiH and 4109 in the RS. Within in the 2875 eligible households, 7603 individuals aged 15 or over were eligible for interview with 7116 (93.6%) being successfully interviewed. Within co-operating households (where there was at least one interview) the interview rate was

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

Background:
A household food consumption and expenditure survey has been conducted each year in Great Britain (excluding Northern Ireland) since 1940. At that time the National Food Survey (NFS) covered a sample drawn solely from urban working-class households, but this was extended to a fully demographically representative sample in 1950. From 1957 onwards the Family Expenditure Survey (FES) provided information on all household expenditure patterns including food expenditure, with the NFS providing more detailed information on food consumption and expenditure. The NFS was extended to cover Northern Ireland from 1996 onwards. In April 2001 these surveys were combined to form the Expenditure and Food Survey (EFS), which completely replaced both series. From January 2008, the EFS became known as the Living Costs and Food (LCF) module of the Integrated Household Survey (IHS). As a consequence of this change, the questionnaire was altered to accommodate the insertion of a core set of questions, common to all of the separate modules which together comprised the IHS. Some of these core questions are simply questions which were previously asked in the same or a similar format on all of the IHS component surveys. For further information on the LCF questionnaire, see Volume A of the LCF 2008 User Guide, held with SN 6385. Further information about the LCF, including links to published reports based on the survey, may be found by searching for 'Living Costs and Food Survey' on the ONS website. Further information on the NFS and Living Costs and Food Module of the IHS can be found by searching for 'Family Food' on the GOV.UK website.

History:
The LCF (then EFS) was the result of more than two years' development work to bring together the FES and NFS; both survey series were well-established and important sources of information for government and the wider community, and had charted changes and patterns in spending and food consumption since the 1950s. Whilst the NFS and FES series are now finished, users should note that previous data from both series are still available from the UK Data Archive, under GNs 33071 (NFS) and 33057 (FES).

Purpose of the LCF
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has overall project management and financial responsibility for the LCF, while the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) sponsors the food data element. As with the FES and NFS, the LCF continues to be primarily used to provide information for the Retail Prices Index, National Accounts estimates of household expenditure, analysis of the effect of taxes and benefits, and trends in nutrition. The results are multi-purpose, however, providing an invaluable supply of economic and social data. The merger of the two surveys also brings benefits for users, as a single survey on food expenditure removes the difficulties of reconciling data from two sources.

Design and methodology The design of the LCF is based on the old FES, although the use of new processing software by the data creators has resulted in a dataset which differs from the previous structure. The most significant change in terms of reporting expenditure, however, is the introduction of the European Standard Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP), in place of the codes previously used. An additional level of hierarchy has been developed to improve the mapping to the previous codes. The LCF was conducted on a financial year basis from 2001, then moved to a calendar year basis from January 2006 (to complement the IHS) until 2015-16, when the financial year survey was reinstated at the request of users. Therefore, whilst SN 5688 covers April 2005 - March 2006, SN 5986 covers January-December 2006. Subsequent years cover January-December until 2014. SN 8210 returns to the financial year survey and currently covers April 2015 - March 2016.

Northern Ireland sample
Users should note that, due to funding constraints, from January 2010 the Northern Ireland (NI) sample used for the LCF was reduced to a sample proportionate to the NI population relative to the UK.

Family Food database:
'Family Food' is an annual publication which provides detailed statistical information on purchased quantities, expenditure and nutrient intakes derived from both household and eating out food and drink. Data is collected for a sample of households in the United Kingdom using self-reported diaries of all purchases, including food eaten out, over a two week period. Where possible quantities are recorded in the diaries but otherwise estimated. Energy and nutrient intakes are calculated using standard nutrient composition data for each of some 500 types of food. Current estimates are based on data collected in the Family Food...

In April 2025, the Consumer Price Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH) inflation rate of the United Kingdom was *** percent, up from *** percent in the previous month. The inflation rate fell noticeably after the COVID-19 pandemic, but rose sharply between Spring 2021 and Autumn 2022. After peaking at *** percent in October 2022, CPIH inflation declined throughout 2023 and into 2024, falling to *** percent by September of that year, before increasing again in recent months. Cost of living problems persist into 2025 Although it is likely that the worst of the recent inflation surge may have passed, the issues caused by it look set to linger into 2025 and beyond. While the share of households experiencing living cost rises has fallen from ** percent in August 2022, to ** percent in July 2024, this share rose towards the end of the year, with more than half of households reporting rising costs in December. Even with lower inflation, overall consumer prices have already increased by around ** percent in the last three years, rising to almost ** percent for food prices, which lower income households typically spend more of their income on. The significant increase in people relying on food banks across the UK, is evidence of the magnitude of this problem, with approximately **** million people using food banks in 2023/**. Other measure of inflation While the CPIH inflation rate displayed here is the preferred index of the UK's Office of National Statistics, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is often more prominently featured in the media in general. An older index, the Retail Price Index (RPI) is also still used by the government to calculate certain taxes, and rail fare rises. Other metrics include the core inflation rate, which measures prices increases without the volatility of food and energy costs, while price increases in goods and services can also be tracked separately. The inflation rate of individual sectors can also be measured, and as of December 2024, prices were rising fastest in the communications sector, at *** percent, with costs falling in the transport and furniture sectors.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

This is a quantitative data collection. This study aimed to collect comprehensive information on all forms of resources (including income and assets) and indicative information on deprivation and style of living in order to define and measure poverty among a representative sample of the population of the United Kingdom.

This major study was the result of fifteen years research. In 1964 the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Trust agreed to finance pilot studies on fatherless families, large families and unemployed and disabled people which were then to be followed by a national survey of poverty. In 1967-68, following pilot work, interviews were completed with 2,052 households (6,045 people), in 630 parliamentary constituencies throughout the United Kingdom. Another 1,514 households (3,539 people), were later interviewed in a poor area of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales to secure information about the populations of the poorest areas.

There were mixed reactions to the book’s publication in 1979. The concept of relative deprivation provoked much discussion but the issue of multiple deprivation experienced by individuals and families was largely ignored. Comparatively little attention was paid to certain forms of deprivation - such as deprivation at work and environmental or locational deprivation - although the report gave data about multiple deprivation drawn from 60 indicators.

Nearly 50 years later this study was reanalysed in a project funded by Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The ‘Advancing Paradata’ project looked at shifts and continuities in the social process of gathering household survey data about poverty. In part it does this through analysis of survey paradata from the 1968 Poverty in the UK survey. Paradata captures the gamut of by-products of the collection of survey data and is of interest in understanding and improving survey quality and costs. The main focus has been on automatically captured macro items, but this is now expanding to include interviewer-generated observations. For the ‘Advancing Paradata’ project, information available only on paper questionnaires at the UK Data Archive was converted into digitised form and related metadata was created. A sample of 100 survey booklets has been selected for this collection. These booklets were chosen because they have significant quantities of marginalia written on the booklets. These booklets are available via the UK Data Service QualiBank, an online tool for browsing, searching and citing the content of selected qualitative data collections held at the UK Data Service. Names of survey respondents have been removed to protect confidentiality.
Main Topics:

Variables:
(i) Housing and living facilities: exact composition of household; adequacy of basic facilities; degree of overcrowding; deficiency of bedrooms; overall household facilities; degree of satisfaction with facilities and environment.
(ii) Employment: 'work record' of each individual over previous twelve months; educational background.
(iii) Occupational facilities and fringe benefits: type of facilities provided for indoor and outside employment; eligibility for fringe benefits (e.g. sick pay, occupational pension); value of fringe benefits in kind received during the year (e.g. meal vouchers, subsidised meals, use of vehicles).
(iv) Current Monetary Income: information on total cash income in (a) previous week, (b) previous twelve months, from any source of each income unit in the household. Questions on earnings, income of self- employed, government social security benefits, and miscellaneous sources of income. Also questions on housing costs and house value.
(v) Savings and assets: information on the value of savings and assets owned by the household, including housing and household or personal possessions.
(vi) Health and disability: general assessment of health of household members; details of any illnesses or disabilities; capacity to undertake ordinary personal and household activities;
(vii) Social services: utilisation of services including periods in hopital and visits to doctors and dentists. Information on welfare benefits received e.g. free school meals, educational maintenance allowances.
(viii) Income in kind: questions on goods and services received in the previous twelve months from relatives and friends.
(ix) Style of living: leisure time activities including holidays; questions on diet, clothing and fuel supply; assessment of own financial situation; arrangements for payment of housekeeping and bills; whether manage to have savings; feelings about 'poverty'.

In addition to the questionnaire and data codebook, the documentation for this study also includes qualitative information of various kinds about the original survey, including interviewers' documents, sampling information, survey documents...

CPIH is the most comprehensive measure of inflation. It extends CPI to include a measure of the costs associated with owning, maintaining and living in one's own home, known as owner occupiers' housing costs (OOH), along with council tax. This dataset provides CPIH time series (2005 to latest published month), allowing users to customise their own selection, view or download.

In 2024, gross domestic product per capita in the United Kingdom was 37,044 British pounds, compared with 37,033 pounds in the previous year. In general, while GDP per capita has grown quite consistently throughout this period, there are noticeable declines, especially between 2007 and 2009, and between 2019 and 2020, due to the Global Financial Crisis, and COVID-19 pandemic, respectively. Why is GDP per capita stagnating when the economy is growing? During the last two years that GDP per capita fell and then stagnated in the UK, the overall economy grew by 0.4 percent in 2023 and 1.1 percent in 2024. While the overall UK economy is therefore larger than it was in 2022, the UK's population has grown at a faster rate, resulting in the lower GDP per capita figure. The long-term slump in the UK's productivity, as measured by output per hour worked, has meant that the gap between GDP growth and GDP per capita growth has been widening for some time. Economy remains the main concern of UK voters As of February 2025, the economy was seen as the main issue facing the UK, just ahead of immigration, health, and several other problems in the country. While Brexit was seen as the most important issue before COVID-19, and concerns about health were dominant throughout 2020 and 2021, the economy has generally been the primary facing voters issue since 2022. The surge in inflation throughout 2022 and 2023, and the impact this had on wages and living standards, resulted in a very tough period for UK households. As of January 2025, 57 percent of households were still noticing rising living costs, although this is down from a peak of 91 percent in August 2022.

These files contain all the data used in the publication "Poverty or Prosperity in Northern India? New Evidence on Real Wages, 1590s-1870s". This paper introduces a new dataset on wages in northern India (from Gujarat in the West to Bengal in the East) from the 1590s to the 1870s. It follows Allen’s subsistence basket methodology to compute internationally comparable real wages to shed light on developments in Indian living standards over time, as well as to test some of the assumptions underlying the comparative real wage methodology. It adjusts the comparative cost of living indices to take into account differences in caloric intake due to variances in heights. Furthermore, the paper discusses the male/female wage gap in northern India. We demonstrate that the Great Divergence started somewhere in the late seventeenth century. This gap widens further after the 1720s and especially after the 1800s. It is subsequently primarily England’s spurt and India’s stagnation in the first half of the nineteenth century which brought about most serious differences in the standard of living in Eurasia. If the British colonial state is to blame – as often happens in the literature on India’s persistent poverty – it is in their failure to improve the already deteriorated situation after they had become the near-undisputed masters of India since 1820.Note on v2There are two main changes compared with Version 1:1. In the sheet “PricesNEI” from the Excel file “prices_north_india.xlsx”, a faulty comma in the formula of column P, caused the average price of ghi to be calculated over 4 rather than 3 columns. This was corrected and the newly calculated series of ghi were also included in the “BasketNEI” sheet of that same file and the improved CPI was used in the calculations of the real wages. As a consequence of this change, the prices of the overall basket are increased somewhat, causing a slight downward adjustment of real wages. 2. In the sheet “PriceNOI”, for the years 1861-1930, the average price of millet (Column J) was accidentally calculated over columns F-I, rather than just column I. This has been corrected in this file and the newly computed CPI entered in the comparisons and real wages calculations. It has no observable consequences for the results. We thank Joseph Enguehard (l’École normale supérieure de Lyon) for pointing us towards these issues. Note on v3There are two changes compared with v2:1. In the file “7.global_comparisons”, sheet “cpi”, in the calculation of the 10-year averages for Beijing, London, Leipzig and Valencia, the range of years in the formula did not match with the decade in column A. This has been corrected. 2. In that same file, sheets “skilled” and “unskilled”, in the calculation of the 10-year averages, the formula for the 1680s accidently ranged from 1678-1689 instead of 1680-1689. This has been corrected. We thank Tamer Güven (Utrecht University) for pointing us towards these issues.

Household furnishings, consumer habits, evaluation of country image and general attitude to the EEC.

Topics: 1. consumption and furnishing questions: assessment of personal as well as national economic situation in the last 5 years; relative assessment of the standard of living in one´s country, compared with the other countries; detailed recording of type, age and repeated acquisition of durable economic goods; country image regarding product, price and fashion; judgement on the quantitative product selection from abroad; residential furnishings; having a yard; type of film used for camera and film use in the last year; flash pictures.

1. questions on car: possession of delivery vehicle and car, organized according to number, brand, model, form of vehicle, displacement and year of manufacture; new purchase or used car; car radio possession and kilometers driven annually; getting gas self-service; personally conducting vehicle maintenance and use of car cleanser as well as car wax; possession of bicycle.

2. detailed recording of drinking habits with softdrinks, beer, wine and schnapps.

3. attitude to the EEC: knowledge about the member countries of the EEC; countries that should join the EEC; countries that have drawn the greatest or the least benefit from the EEC; EEC membership for the benefit of the country and to raise the standard of living; most important political goals of the EEC.

4. socio-cultural attitudes: attitude to law-breakers; social justice; social and ethnic tolerance; general attitude to young people and older people.

5. attitude to advertising: purchase of a watch during the last five years and price paid for it; activities and jobs conducted oneself in the household; attitude to fashion (scale); social prestige of selected occupations; church attendance on Christmas Day; desire for a life 50 years from now; number of rooms with carpeting.

6. leisure time and further education: knowledge of a foreign language; television habits and reading habits with magazines; total reading times and whereabouts of the magazines; number of books read and bought in the last year; book price; manner of book purchase (mail-order or bookstore); pet possession and manner as well as extent of obtaining feed; participation in further education courses and motives for this; vacation behavior; vacation destinations abroad; package tours; relatives and friends traveling along; trip duration; trip costs; means of transport used; trips by airplane; scheduled or charter flight; frequency of trips to the hairdresser; (among women: use of toiletries and cosmetics); (among men: use of washing and shaving utensils; custom-made or off-the-shelf suit; type of store and price of suit last purchased); use or provisions of nutrition and semi-luxury foods, tobacco and alcohol; use of dish-washing liquids and household cleansers or cleaning products; use of communal washing machines or use of a laundry; age of one´s own washing machine; forms of assets and bank account possession; second home; Readers´ Digest subscriber.

Demography: age; sex; marital status; religious denomination; occupational position; employment; company size; household income; possession of durable economic goods; composition of household; respondent is head of household; characteristics of head of household; housing situation; residential status; degree of urbanization.

Interviewer rating: social class of respondent; weekday of interview.

Judgement on current situation in life and political and economic development of the country in times of economic and social upheaval.

Topics: 1. Common part of the survey for all participating countries: most important problems of the country; intent to emigrate and country of choice; desired occupation for one´s own child; judgement on the work of the president of the country; fears and desires for the future; assessment of current standard of living and comparison with the situation five years ago and expected future development; judgement on the situation of the country in comparison over time; preference for freedom or social security; attitude to admission of undemocratic parties; attitude to freedom of the press; perceived discrimination against women; attitude to division of labor in raising children; judgement on conduct of parliamentary representatives and attitude to democracy in the country (scale); feeling of political effectiveness; internal or external control; achievement orientation; attitude to the national economy; demand for increased environmental protection; desire for foreign support for one´s country; the government as guarantor of equal opportunities and social security; welfare state; necessity of the willingness to compromise in politics; interest in politics at municipal level; diminishing interest in political events; self-assessment as patriot; attitude to securing of peace through military strength; readiness for national defense; necessity of participation of one´s country in world politics; claims to territory in neighboring countries; attitude to restriction on immigration; attitude to use of military for restoration of world order.

Religion and morals: importance of prayer and significance of God in one´s own life; doubt in the existence of God; attitude to prohibition of books critical of society and to sex magazines and films; attitude to freedom of speech even for fascists; assessment of the general trustworthiness of people; AIDS as punishment by God; representation of traditional values in the area of family and marriage; attitude to abortion; clear concepts of Good and Evil; perceived intensification of class differences; assessment of personal things in common with uneducated and persons of another race or ethnic affiliation; satisfaction with one´s own financial situation.

Demography: party membership; union membership; residential status; city size; religiousness.

1. Additional questions in this survey: attitude to advertising (scale); acceptance of advertising in selected media; desired establishing of prices through demand, production costs or government determination; judgement on the economic consequences of European unification for one´s country; expected influence of European integration on the development of agriculture, industry and tourism; attitude to admission of Eastern European countries into the EC; preferred applicant countries; Eastern European country the closest to one´s own; attitude to the European domestic market; dominant member country in the European Community; attitude to export of weapons into third world countries.

Unit of measurement: 2015=100. United Kingdom, 05.1.1 Furniture and furnishings. CPIH is the most comprehensive measure of inflation. It extends CPI to include a measure of the costs associated with owning, maintaining and living in one's own home, known as owner occupiers' housing costs (OOH), along with council tax. This dataset provides CPIH time series (2005 to latest published month), allowing users to customise their own selection, view or download.

This is the proportion of children aged under 16 (0-15) living in families in absolute low income during the year. The figures are based on the count of children aged under 16 (0-15) living in the area derived from ONS mid-year population estimates. The count of children refers to the age of the child at 30 June of each year.

Low income is a family whose equivalised income is below 60 per cent of median household incomes. Gross income measure is Before Housing Costs (BHC) and includes contributions from earnings, state support, and pensions. Equivalisation adjusts incomes for household size and composition, taking an adult couple with no children as the reference point. For example, the process of equivalisation would adjust the income of a single person upwards, so their income can be compared directly to the standard of living for a couple.

Absolute low income is income Before Housing Costs (BHC) in the reference year in comparison with incomes in 2010/11 adjusted for inflation. A family must have claimed one or more of Universal Credit, Tax Credits, or Housing Benefit at any point in the year to be classed as low income in these statistics. Children are dependent individuals aged under 16; or aged 16 to 19 in full-time non-advanced education. The count of children refers to the age of the child at 31 March of each year.

Data are calibrated to the Households Below Average Income (HBAI) survey regional estimates of children in low income but provide more granular local area information not available from the HBAI. For further information and methodology on the construction of these statistics, visit this link. Totals may not sum due to rounding.

Data is Powered by LG Inform Plus and automatically checked for new data on the 3rd of each month.

Characteristics of sampled households in the Living Costs and Food Survey.

After reaching a peak of 10.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2022, the CPI inflation rate in the United Kingdom has fallen considerably, and was 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024. In 2025, there is expected to be an uptick in inflation, with prices expected to be increasing by 3.7 percent in the third quarter of 2025, before falling to two percent by the second quarter of 2026. Inflation and the Cost of Living The high inflation experienced by the UK since late 2021 is one of the main factors behind the country's ongoing cost of living crisis. Price surges, in relation to food and energy costs in particular, played havoc with the finances of UK households. At the height of the crisis, around nine out of ten households were experiencing a cost of living increase compared to the previous month. Although inflation has eased since reaching a peak of 11.1 percent in October 2022, and wages are growing in real terms, approximately 59 percent of households were still experiencing rising costs relative to the previous month in March 2025. Economic growth downgraded for 2025 Since 2022, the economy has generally been the main issue for UK voters, seen by 51 percent of people as one of the top three issues facing the country in March 2025. Throughout this time, UK households have struggled through a cost of living crisis, while the wider economy has struggled to achieve consistent growth. Between the first quarter of 2022, the UK economy has alternated between periods of low growth and minor contractions, with the UK even in recession at the end of 2023. While there was a slight uptick in growth in 2024, this momentum appears to have already been lost, with the UK's economic growth forecast for 2025 recently downgraded from two percent to one percent.

Focus group interviews were conducted between November and December 2010 in five different locations, including in each of the four territories comprising the UK: Bristol, Cardiff, London, Glasgow and Belfast. Separate group interviews were conducted amongst low income samples (5 groups), non-low income samples (5 groups), and mixed income samples (4 groups). These groups were also stratified by household type (11 groups) and minority ethnic status (3 groups)