Pensioner enemy number one

Many things impact negatively on levels of income in retirement, but the biggest culprit is inflation - and sometimes deflation

Actually no, it is not low savings rates, post-office queues or bingo tax - it is inflation. This might sound absurd when RPI has just dipped to the lowest level since records began at -1.2%, but in fact this has little bearing on the problem. The headline RPI rate is a useful measure of inflation, but attention to this indication in isolation conceals the fundamental truth that there are in fact 60,975,000 inflation rates in the UK - one for each individual living here. As far as official rates go, as well as RPI and CPI, we have RPIX, RPIY and HICP, not to mention unofficial 'real cost ...