Australian households are facing sustained cost of living pressure this week, with fuel prices tracking above the national average and mortgage holders absorbing the ongoing weight of elevated interest rates. Grocery costs remain well above pre-2022 levels despite some easing in fruit and vegetable prices, and energy bills in most states continue to run ahead of last year's figures. Telecommunications costs are the one quiet note in an otherwise pressured picture, with mobile and broadband pricing broadly stable. The overall AHI Score of 67 out of 100 signals conditions that are elevated — not at crisis levels, but meaningfully above what Australian households experienced in 2019 and 2020.
The Australian Household Index (AHI) is a weekly composite score that measures the financial pressure facing a typical Australian household across five key spending categories: fuel, groceries, energy, housing, and telecommunications. Each category is weighted to reflect its share of the average household budget, and scored against a baseline of pre-pandemic 2019 conditions.
A score of 0 would represent a household environment identical to 2019 — before the inflation surge, interest rate cycle, and global supply shocks of the early 2020s. A score of 100 represents the maximum pressure recorded across all five categories since monitoring began. The AHI is not a prediction; it is a snapshot of current conditions, updated each week.
All data is sourced from Australian government agencies and updated as new official figures are published. Where data is published less frequently than weekly — such as the ABS CPI, which is released quarterly — the most recent available figure is held until a new release supersedes it.
The Australian Household Index was created to fill a gap in the public information landscape: a single, weekly, consumer-facing snapshot of what is actually happening to household costs — drawn entirely from government data, interpreted in plain English, and not beholden to any commercial interest.
Too much cost of living commentary is either too technical to be useful, too slow to reflect current conditions, or shaped by the interests of the organisation publishing it. The AHI is designed to be the opposite: fast, accessible, and independent.
The index is produced and fronted by Graeme Hughes, one of Australia's most active independent economic commentators. Graeme has no affiliation with any supermarket group, energy company, financial institution, or telecommunications provider.
Each week, the AHI Pulse delivers the current score, the five-category breakdown, and the plain-English interpretation — direct to your inbox. No advertising. No commercial content. Just the numbers.
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