Same groceries, less expensive

What do the woe-is-me, atavistic, socialist crowd have to say about the fact that groceries now cost less than they did 30 years ago? They'll probably point out that houses cost more, which is true, but then miss the fact that cars and nearly every other item we buy costs less, leaving more money for housing (which pushes up prices, as it happens).

The average Australian is working less time to pay for essential groceries today than they did almost 30 years ago, research shows.

The Australian National Retailers Association study showed Australians today have to work 229.5 minutes to pay for a typical basket of groceries, compared with 250 minutes in 1978.

Hobart residents required the most work, at 260 minutes, to pay for the groceries, with Perth workers needing to work the least at 209 minutes.

"Australians will be happy to know they are now doing less work for the same basket of goods and are much better off than their parents were," the association's chief executive officer Margy Osmond said.

"Food now takes up a much smaller portion of people's budgets than it did over the past three decades."

In the last 10 years (1996-2006) the amount of work required to buy the basket of groceries remained remarkably stable.

The association said the independent study examined a basket of typical grocery goods including milk, bread, butter, flour, steak, eggs and assorted fruit.

The study examined the time it took someone on the average male wage to buy the typical grocery basket.

Free market economics? Go you good thing!