Cost of Living pressures

How many times have we heard from politicians about people having cost of living pressures.
It has been a running theme over the last decade.
Ross Gittins pores over this .
He notes RBA Governor Lowe saying over the CPI, has averaged 1.8% over the last three years.
This being the case where are these cost of living pressures coming from?
Must be electricity right?  Nah most people are paying no more for electricity out of their household budget than they did in 1984!!

The reason people feel prices rises so much is two fold.
First is the fact we take more notice of price rises then we do of price falls. I will give the example of my good wife. She loves travelling overseas. And she does regularly because she gets 'bargains'.
She complains about when fruit and vegetables prices go up but says little when they come down. She rarely talks about the price falls she gains to go overseas but again complains about price rises here and there.
most people are like this. They make a big deal about price rises but little about price falls.

Second is the fact wages are not rising with regular monotony in real terms courtesy of our deregulated wages system. when you add low nominal wage rises with little real increases then you have people realising  household budgets are under pressure.

Politicians can educate people about the former but are too frightened to. They can only change the second by legislation.