The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) on April 8 announced that the consumer price index (CPI) rose 3.27 percent annually last month — the highest increase in more than nine years.
Consumer prices in the seven categories ranging from food and clothing to housing and transportation all increased last month.
Meanwhile, the core CPI, which excludes vegetables, fruit and energy, rose 2.47 percent from a year earlier — its highest increase in more than 13 years.
However, the DGBAS continues to insist that there is “no inflation,” despite the price gauge slowly rising. Such a statement shows that government officials are not sympathetic to or even aware of the public’s suffering.
The rise indicated by the CPI has little impact on people with high incomes. The wealth they have accumulated enables them to cope with the pressure of rising prices, while the profits they make through retirement accounts and investment plans often outweigh the effects of inflationary currency depreciation.
The price hikes are making life even more difficult for 2.72 million Taiwanese whose average monthly wage is less than NT$30,000 and for more than half of the people under the age of 30 who make less than NT$30,000 per month.
In addition to them are low-income earners and socially disadvantaged people, whose average monthly wage is less than NT$18,000.
Most of the time, the government underestimates the inflation rate. Many Taiwanese might feel that although the rising prices are apparent and painful, the government always claims that they are mild; even though inflationary pressures are high, it always downplays the problem. No wonder the government is often criticized for pretending that everything is going well.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) once said: “The numbers are cold, but people’s actual feelings are not.”
If this is true, the government should pay more attention to the issue of commodity prices.
Taiwanese tend not to pay much attention to most government statistics, but commodity prices affect their everyday lives. As a result, they are particularly sensitive to price hikes.
Therefore, before imported inflation is improved and household real income is increased, it seems inappropriate for the government to tell the public that there is “no inflation” while the so-called “misery index” — a combination of the CPI and the unemployment rate — is about to exceed 6 percent.
Wei Shih-chang is an information technology engineer.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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