Expenses explode

Inflation: food sometimes unaffordable for families

Inflation is placing an enormous burden on families in Austria. Parents with two children now have to budget more than a thousand euros a month for an adequate and healthy diet. The total monthly expenditure - even without car ownership - with two children aged 7 and 14 is €4433 for couples and €3704 for single parents.

Compared to 2023, monthly costs have risen by several hundred euros, as the reference budgets published by debt advice services on Monday show. The reference budget for a household with one parent and two children is 300 euros higher than last year.

Prices for heating have risen particularly sharply, namely by 53 percent. Food has become 11 percent more expensive and expenses for social and cultural participation have risen by 10 percent. Rental costs have also risen significantly, by 8 percent to be precise.

Food no longer affordable for many
"The increases in the cost of living are alarming," explained Johanna Steurer, project manager for the reference budgets at ASB Schuldnerberatungen GmbH, the umbrella organization for state-approved debt advice services in Austria. More and more people can no longer keep up financially. This is also shown by new figures on over-indebtedness, "where high living costs are becoming increasingly important as a reason for over-indebtedness", says Steurer. Food is no longer affordable for many people.

The increases in the cost of living are alarming.

Johanna Steurer, Projektverantwortliche für die Referenzbudgets bei der ASB Schuldnerberatungen GmbH

What is needed for a simple but good life
The reference budgets of the debt advice services are calculated annually and show how much money is needed for different types of households to be able to afford a decent life with a minimum of social and cultural participation. According to ASB, they are the only survey in Austria that calculates how much is needed for a simple but good life in terms of expenditure.

For the first time, there are also reference budgets for couple households with four children and single-parent households with three and four children. Households with only one parent and families with three or more children are particularly often affected by poverty.

No regional differences are taken into account in the reference budgets, and rented accommodation is assumed. Costs for a car are also not included in the reference budgets. According to ASB, the average total monthly costs for a car would be just under 900 euros.

Changes demanded for poverty measure
The debt advice services are calling for the reference budgets to be used as an official measure of poverty alongside the at-risk-of-poverty threshold and also to be taken into account in the minimum subsistence level. This is because the calculation of the at-risk-of-poverty threshold is based on two-year-old income data (EU-SILC). According to the official definition, anyone who has to live on less than 60 percent of the median income of the population as a whole is considered to be at risk of poverty. For single parents with two children and monthly household costs of 3704 euros according to the reference budget, the at-risk-of-poverty threshold is 2830 euros, which is 874 euros below the ASB reference budget.