We all like to think we are unique.
Your bank’s data scientists might agree; no one else’s credit card statement looks exactly like yours.
Which means the media coverage of the monthly national average inflation rate is only the start of the story for you. Kind of like the Whitehorse weather forecast on a fall morning. The radio might say the temperature is 0°C, but that will mean rain in Riverdale and slushy snow on the cars of upper Copper Ridge.
What you really need to know is your personal rate of inflation, based on the mix of stuff you buy.
The first step is moving from national to local.
When the averagists at Statistics Canada released their latest annual inflation rate, the figure for Canada was 2.39 percent. Close to the Bank of Canada’s target of 2 percent, and not bad compared to 8.1 percent back in June 2022.
However, Statistics Canada also reported that the inflation rate for consumers in Whitehorse turns out to have been 3.70 percent. That’s 1.32 percent higher. (Statistics Canada reports inflation figures for Whitehorse, not the Yukon in general.)
Doesn’t sound like much. But think of it this way. Every time you spend $1000, go out to the outhouse and toss a crisp purple $10 bill, a loonie and a toonie down the hole (plus a dime, nickel and three pennies – if you can find pennies these days).
What explains this difference, other than the grinding forces of global capitalism being out to get you?
I looked into the inflation statistics for some clues.
You might be surprised to learn that food inflation was lower in Whitehorse over the last year than in Canada overall, although the difference with Canada was only a wafer-thin 0.07 percent.
That welcome wafer of good news is sadly offset by another price report by the Yukon Bureau of Statistics. They reported in their March report that, as you will not be surprised to learn, prices for a sub-basket of 15 food products are higher in Whitehorse than in Alberta. 24.5 percent higher. Ouch.
So thanks to our wafer-thin 0.07 percent victory over the Canadian average, food prices are very slightly less painful in Whitehorse than last year.
The category that really hurt us versus the national average was shelter. Statistics Canada uses a statistical blender to create one number that includes rents as well as home ownership costs. The latter includes a notional depreciation charge related to the replacement value of your house plus mortgage interest, property taxes, insurance, maintenance and related costs.
The Whitehorse number was 4.29 percent, a stonking 1.66 percentage points above the national average of 2.64 percent.
Another area where we got hit harder was “Household operations, furnishings and equipment.” Think of a bundle of products such as cleaning products, telephone and internet, furniture, appliances, bedding and light bulbs.
Our inflation was 3.83 percent versus a much lower 0.61 percent nationally.
If it’s any consolation, this category is only one-sixth of the average person’s spending.
Diving into the sub-sub-categories, “Furniture and household textiles” was a villain. Up 11.8 percent in Whitehorse versus a fall in prices nationally. Communications, including telephone services, and household cleaning products on the other hand rose more slowly than in the rest of the country.
We also did 1.70 percentage points worse on clothing and footwear. Nationally, prices actually fell in this category. Not here.
It’s hard to say why these items inflated more in Whitehorse. An economist would ask questions about longer supply lines, expensive diesel and heating costs, labor shortages and how much competition between big retailers there was.
Where did we beat the national average?
The big difference was gasoline. National inflation was 5.92 percent here, but the figure for Whitehorse was negative: -1.53 percent.
Before you fire up the 5.2 litre supercharged V8 in your F-150 Ford Raptor and go for a rip to celebrate, however, keep in mind that our low number is only because our gas prices happened to be high exactly a year ago.
So the year on year price change looks good. But in March gas was still up 20 percent on last October. Gas prices went even higher by April thanks to the war in the Middle East, although the temporary federal gas tax cut will help.
Meanwhile, inflation on booze, smokes and weed was only 0.25 percent in Whitehorse versus 1.25 percent nationally. This is only about 5 percent of the average wallet however.
But while we are now talking about the average Whitehorse consumer, we need to think even more specifically about your personal inflation rate.
Here, like for people starting their car on that autumn day in Whitehorse, there will be winners and losers.
Shelter is the biggest sub-basket in the Consumer Price Index. If you don’t rent and already own a home, the inflation numbers here hit your cash wallet much more lightly.
Furthermore, if you have an electric car and not a 720-horsepower gasoline pickup, you will have saved a pile of money (even with higher electricity prices, the cost per kilometre is so much lower with electric vehicles).
If you spend more of your money on recreation, education and reading, that would help too. Our inflation was close to the national average in that category.
If you spend more on alcohol, tobacco and cannabis, you also enjoyed less inflation.
Inflation figures also tend to differ by age, an exercise I used to do with my Economics 101 class.
Older consumers tend to buy more eyeglasses and prescription drugs but fewer strollers and children’s snowsuits.
Even if you went to the trouble of using Statistics Canada’s personal inflation calculator, however, these numbers might overstate the impact on your cost of living.
This is because you can change the basket of goods you buy more quickly than statisticians change their typical basket. If you are in the store and see apples have gone up in price, you can switch to pears.
With the Middle East conflict continuing to roil global markets, and agricultural traders speculating about El Niño weather patterns and crop yields later this year, I’m afraid you should prepare yourself for both higher and more volatile inflation.
As painful as that will be, managing your personal inflation rate will reduce the impact. We’ll all need to pay more attention to prices, and switch the products in our baskets if we can when things go up.
Keith Halliday is a Yukon writer and a winner of the Canadian Community Newspaper Award for Outstanding Columnist. His books include Moonshadows and Aurore of the Yukon. He is co-host of the Klondike Gold Rush History podcast.