Annual consumer price index (CPI) inflation decreased from 10.1 per cent in March to 8.7 per cent in April. We’ve talked about what inflation is and how it is calculated in a previous Monday interview so I’ll take that as read. The latest fall in the inflation rate was driven by price decreases in housing and household services (specifically gas and electricity). We can think of this as last April’s energy increases ‘dropping out’ of the CPI basket. To elaborate, housing and household services inflation was 13.2 per cent in April 2022, but 12.3 per cent in April 2023. Since inflation is calculated on an annual basis, ... (full story)