Health expenses, electricity and groceries are the top three issues worrying more than half of all Australian consumers.
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The top strains are revealed in Choice’s latest quarterly Consumer Pulse Survey, which also found concerns about interest rates and superannuation consumed 56 per cent of Australians.
“I think cost of living concerns for consumers across the board are very high and we are in an environment now where wages are very flat,” said Choice spokesman Tom Godfrey.
Cost of living expenses are placing pressure on Australian consumers, with electricity, health and food expenses topping the list of concerns. Photo: Louie Douvis
“Yet things like electricity and medical expenses are really putting pressure on the family budget. Unfortunately it looks like this pattern is here to stay.”
The survey of 1042 respondents, conducted in June, found almost 10 per cent of renters have been forced to deliberately miss a rent payment due to financial stress, while 19 per cent have lived off a credit card to get by until payday.
It also found more than 30 per cent of women are finding it difficult to sustain themselves on their present income, compared with 26 per cent of men.
More than 80 per cent of renters are without a fixed-term lease, or on a lease of less than 12 months. Photo: Gabriele Charotte
Electricity topped the list of worries for 82 per cent of Australians, followed by health expenses (79 per cent), food and groceries (73 per cent), fuel (72 per cent), car insurance (68 per cent) and mortgage or rent (65 per cent).
The figures follow census data published by Fairfax Media last week, which revealed more than 300 Sydney suburbs where it was typical for home loan repayments to top $30,000 a year.
Between homeowners and renters, Choice found the latter feel the most pressure, with “serious issues in the quality and security” of the rental market, where more than 80 per cent are without a fixed-term lease, or on a lease of less than 12 months.
“The lack of security is typified in the inability for renters to obtain the overseas-style long-term leases and assurances that they won’t be kicked out for no reason,” the survey report said.
Cassandra Goldie, chief executive of the Australian Council of Social Service, said the findings were an apt reflection of the feedback from those working in the community.
“There is an increasing number of people who just can’t make ends meet … this sense of fragility accords with real changes in Australia’s economic and social circumstance that government needs to take seriously,” she said.
“Since the global financial crisis we have had our own experience of austerity in Australia; a tripling of long term annual unemployment and a flattening of wages growth, so social services and security are two very important parts of the safety net.”
She called on electricity retailers to “end pay on time discounts, standardise language and transparency on pricing and offers, and prevent disconnections due to incapacity to pay”, adding that there was a long way to go in tackling housing affordability.
While housing was a major concern for Gen Y respondents of the survey, among the biggest were university fees (62 per cent) and interest rates (63 per cent).
To counter the financial pressures they face, more than 60 per cent of Gen Y plan to cut back on alcohol and tobacco, compared with just 51 per cent of Gen X and Baby Boomers that planned to do the same.
Despite the financial strains facing Gen Y, according to Telstra’s global Millennial, Mobile, Money Index released last month, 18 to 34-year-old Australians have “significant banking wallets”.
It found they had an average wallet size of $88,674, “making them a very attractive proposition for banking players”.
Article source: http://watoday.com.au/small-business/managing/work-in-progress/intercultural-relationships-a-factor-in-entrepreneurial-success-research-shows-20170720-gxfmwo.html
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