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High inflation is battering consumers around the globe. Now the U.K. will track how much higher it is for the poor
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It's expensive being poor, especially when inflation is running wild. Following pressure from a prominent anti-poverty campaigner—wielding economic theory from one of the U.K.'s most-beloved fantasy authors—the country's top statisticians have taken this truism to heart and pledged to break down inflation figures for different income groups.

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) will still publish its headline inflation figure, which stands at a nearly 30-year high of 5.4%. However, the agency said Wednesday that from the end of this week it will also resume publication (suspended due to pandemic shortages) of more detailed "experimental statistics" for the Consumer Prices Index, which is a key measure for calculating inflation rates.

"We are committed to ensuring that our statistics are relevant and continue to meet user needs," an ONS spokesperson said in an emailed statement. "As part of this we are restarting publication of inflation broken down according to how much income you earn."

'True cost-of-living crisis'

The ONS has not confirmed that its decision was a reaction to the campaigning of Jack Monroe, a prominent British food writer, but it's difficult to escape that conclusion.

Monroe, who has long been an anti-poverty campaigner, reacted to the publication of the 5.4% headline figure last week with a Sunday Observer article arguing such inflation measures "grossly underestimate the true cost-of-living crisis."

The thrust of the piece was that the cheapest food items have been getting more expensive, while their variety has been shrinking, forcing the poorest to either buy less for more, go to a food bank, or starve.

"So, along with a team of economists, charitable partners, retail price analysts, people working to combat poverty in the U.K., ex-staff from the Office for National Statistics and others who have volunteered their time and expertise, I am compiling a new price index—one that will document the disappearance of the budget lines and the insidiously creeping prices of the most basic versions of essential items at the supermarket," Monroe wrote. "At the very least, it will serve as an irrefutable snapshot of the reality experienced by millions of people."

The name of this new price index refers to its inspiration: the Vimes Boots Index.

'A really good pair of leather boots'

For those unfamiliar with the Discworld novels of the late Terry Pratchett—one of the U.K.'s most successful fantasy authors, and its best-selling author before J.K. Rowling took off—some feature as their main character a philosophically-minded police detective named Sam Vimes. As described in the novel Men at Arms, "the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness" explains that the rich are rich because they manage to spend less money: