One headline, three different baskets

Türkiye's consumer price index rose 1.84 per cent in August and the annual rate came down to 31.51 per cent. Inside the month the movement was uneven: transport rose 4.82 per cent, housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels 2.26 per cent, and food and non-alcoholic beverages only 0.22 per cent. The monthly contributions were 0.82 points from transport, 0.27 from housing and 0.06 from food.[1]

Over twelve months the three heaviest groups all ran ahead of the headline: housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels 39.77 per cent, transport 35.08 per cent and food and non-alcoholic beverages 33.79 per cent, against 31.51 per cent for the index as a whole. Their contributions were 5.01, 5.94 and 8.12 points. A household that spends most of its money on rent, utility bills and getting to work therefore meets a rate above the published figure, while a household with a smaller housing and transport share meets one below it. The weights behind the index describe a national average.[1]

134 of the 174 sub-groups

The spread inside the basket is wide. Prices rose in 134 of the 174 sub-groups the index follows, fell in 35 and were unchanged in 5. The core indicator that strips out unprocessed food, energy, alcoholic beverages, tobacco and gold rose 30.68 per cent over the year; sitting below the headline, that rate places part of August's pressure in exactly the items a low-income budget cannot postpone. Since the start of the year the cumulative increase has reached 22.07 per cent.[1]

The August basket closed before 1 September

This column argued on 31 August that household consumption carried second-quarter growth and that from 1 September a litre of diesel would carry 3.60 lira more in tax. The August basket closes before that date, so the transport figure above is measured without it. Transport prices in September rise faster than the overall consumer price index if the tax passes through to consumers; the signal to watch is the September release, where the monthly change in the transport group would stand above the monthly change in the whole index.[1], [2]