Why does everything feel so much more expensive than it did a few years ago? Politicians are debating whether to increase the youth minimum wage, but the bigger question is whether any wage rise can keep up with what's already happened to prices.

The answer lies in Britain's official inflation measure. The Consumer Prices Index including housing costs has climbed from 162,574 in 2021 to 201,118 in 2025. That's not just another government statistic. It's the mathematical proof that your pound buys 24% less than it did four years ago. (Source: Office for National Statistics, CPIH (Consumer Prices Index including Housing))

Put simply: what cost you £100 in 2021 now costs £124. Your weekly shop at Tesco, your energy bill, your rent. Everything.

The trajectory tells the story of Britain's economic trauma. Prices rose a relatively modest 9.6% in 2022 as the cost-of-living crisis began. Then came the real shock: a massive 7.2% jump in 2023 as energy costs soared and supply chains buckled. Even as inflation supposedly cooled, prices still climbed another 2.2% in 2024, then 3.0% this year.

Here's what those percentages mean in your life. If you're a London renter paying £1,800 a month, that flat would have cost £1,452 in 2021. If you're spending £80 a week on groceries, you would have paid £64.50 for the same basket four years ago. If you're filling up your car for £70, that tank cost £56.50 in 2021.

The cruel mathematics get worse when you consider wages. The median UK salary is around £35,000. To maintain the same purchasing power as someone earning that amount in 2021, you'd need to be earning £43,400 today. Most workers haven't seen pay rises anywhere close to that.

This explains why household debt is climbing, why food bank usage has soared, and why millions of families are choosing between heating and eating. It's not that people have become worse at managing money. It's that money itself buys dramatically less.

The 38-year dataset shows just how unprecedented this period has been. Britain experienced similar price shocks in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but nothing quite like the sustained squeeze of the past four years. We've effectively compressed a decade's worth of typical price rises into less than half that time.

So while politicians debate youth wages and pensioner benefits, remember this: every policy discussion about money is really a discussion about how to cope with the fact that pounds have quietly become worth much less than they used to be.