Cost-of-living report highlights severe household financial strain – Here’s what you need to know

The Competition Commission has painted a grim picture of the cost of living in South Africa, revealing that prices of essential utilities such as electricity and water have skyrocketed far beyond the national inflation rate over the last six years. The Commission released the second Cost of Living (CoL) report on Wednesday, 1 April, which is not an April Fool’s joke, as more South Africans feel the pressure of economic hardship. The report shows how prices for basic goods and services have changed since 2020, and what this means for household budgets.

According to the report, from 2020 to January 2026, electricity prices surged by about 85% and water prices by about 68%. This is significantly above overall inflation, which increased by 30% over the same period. “The persistence of these increases reflects deeper structural challenges within the utility sector, including ageing infrastructure, high debt burdens, operational inefficiencies, and the need for ongoing capital investment,” the Commission said.

The CoL report also examined the gap between what producers receive and what consumers pay for selected foods, including canned pilchards, eggs, individually quick-frozen (IQF) chicken, sunflower oil and maize meal. “In this report, the “spread” is the percentage difference between the producer price and the retail price. The Commission analyses spreads to see how price changes move through the value chain and where the gap is widening or narrowing,” the Commission said.

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“A widening spread can suggest opportunistic “rocket and feather” pricing, where processors or retailers raise prices quickly when costs rise but reduce them slowly when costs fall.” The report showed that healthcare also had an impact on South Africans. Primary healthcare: General practitioner (GP) consultation costs have risen faster than overall inflation and remain high in 2026. GP tariff increases in 2026 are expected to be broadly in line with medical inflation of about 4.2%.

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