Housing & Transport Are Driving Inflation — And They're Not Letting Up

April's CPI read was not a surprise in direction — but the composition is worth unpacking. The headline monthly print came in at +0.64pp (SA), and once again the story is being written by two categories: Housing and Transport.

The 1-Month Picture: A Two-Engine Machine

Looking at the latest seasonally-adjusted 1-month contributions, the breakdown is stark:

• Housing: +0.31pp — nearly half the headline on its own
• Transport: +0.23pp — the second engine, running hot
• Food & Beverages: +0.07pp — a distant third
• Medical Care: −0.01pp — the only meaningful drag

Education & Comm and Recreation barely registered. The month was, in practical terms, a Housing + Transport story with some noise around the edges.

Zoom Out: The 3-Month Sum Tells the Same Story, Louder

Rolling up the past three months of 1-month effects gives a headline sum of +1.77pp. The ranking shifts slightly — Transport actually overtakes Housing on this window:

• Transport: +0.97pp
• Housing: +0.58pp
• Food & Bev: +0.13pp

Transport's acceleration over the past quarter is notable. Whether that reflects energy pass-through, used car prices, or insurance costs continuing to reprice, the 3-month signal is clear: this isn't a one-month spike.

The 6-Month View: Persistence Is the Story

Extending to six months, the headline running sum reaches +2.49pp. Transport and Housing together contribute +1.93pp — roughly 77% of the total accumulated pressure.

Education & Communication is the only category in negative territory over six months (−0.03pp), a faint disinflationary signal in a sea of persistent upward pressure. Medical Care adds only +0.09pp over the same stretch — meaningful given its weight, but not a driver here.

Breadth: Still Wide at 75%

One way to distinguish between narrow, idiosyncratic inflation and broad-based price pressure is diffusion — what share of categories are contributing positively. In April, that number sits at 75%.

Three-quarters of major CPI components are pushing prices higher. That makes it harder to argue the current inflation pulse is a quirk of one or two volatile categories — the pressure is distributed.

The Historical Context: Contributions Over Time

Bottom Line

April's inflation print is another data point in a pattern that has been building for months. Housing and Transport are not transitory contributors — they have been consistently at the top of the contribution ranking across 1-month, 3-month, and 6-month windows. Breadth at 75% means this isn't a narrow story that resolves on its own if one sector cools.

The path to a materially lower CPI print runs through both of these categories moderating simultaneously. For now, there's little sign of that in the data.