17 August 2006
The findings of Alliance Trust Research Centre suggest that the elders of the UK population face rising inflation while the rate drops for all other age groups.
Over 65s saw inflation rates go up in the past month, compared with a falling rate for other age groups. The over 75s were worst affected, facing an inflation rate of 3.7 per cent – one-and-a-half times higher than the UK’s headline inflation of 2.4 per cent.
Shona Dobbie, head of the Alliance Trust Research Centre, blamed rising energy prices for the discrepancies, noting that the average elderly household spends five per cent more of its income on housing, water, electricity and gas than the UK average.
“With the cost of gas and electricity on the up, the impact of these rises will affect the elderly more than the average population. The over 75s in particular spend a greater proportion of their monthly budget on these goods and services.
“To make matters worse we have seen more energy price hikes in the past few weeks and there could still be more to come,” Ms Dobbie continued.
“Unfortunately this will always hit the elderly the hardest as the impact of energy price rises for these households is at least twice as large as for those of working age.”