Living Costs and Household Income Survey

Statistics Jersey started the 2021 to 2022 survey in September 2021 and ran it for a year. 

This survey is carried out once every 5 years. The last completed survey was the 2014 to 2015 survey. The 2019 to 2020 survey had to be cut short due to the COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020.

Statistics Jersey use the results of the survey to measure household incomes and income inequality and show how these are changing over time. We can also make sure that the Jersey ‘cost of living’ (RPI) reflects the goods and services that Islanders buy.

Every two weeks, Statistics Jersey will sent letters to randomly selected households. A trained Statistics Jersey interviewer will then visit each household to talk through the survey and answer any questions they might have. The interviewer will arrange to return at a convenient time to lead the household through a series of questions on, for example, household bills and large or regular purchases. The household will then be asked to keep a spending diary over the next fortnight, and will be given further help from the interviewer if needed. 

Finding out the types, quantities and cost of the things on which Jersey households spend their money is vital for a number of official statistics to be produced. For example the Retail Prices Index (RPI), which tracks changes in the cost of products and services, involves pricing the range of goods and services on which different households spend their money. To calculate the RPI, statisticians give more weight (i.e. importance) to some goods or services than others, depending on what proportion of the typical household’s income is spent on those goods or services.

The survey runs for a year to ensure we can capture different spending patterns throughout the year. For example, spending is typically higher in the build up to Christmas.

All the information given by households in this survey will be treated as strictly confidential, and identifiable information will not be shared with anyone outside of Statistics Jersey. The information will only be used to produce aggregate (grouped) statistics so that no person, household, or small group of households can be identified in the results. Under no circumstances will identifiable records be made available to any other States departments or private organisations.

The full report on the results gathered from October 2021 to November 2022 is available here: 

The 2019 to 2020 round of the Living Costs and Household Income Survey (formerly the Household Spending and Income Survey) commenced in July 2019 and was due to run continuously over the subsequent twelve-month period. However, the developing Covid-19 situation led the Chief Statistician to stop the fieldwork (data-gathering) in March 2020. At this point only about half the expected responses had been obtained.

Statistics Jersey produced a household income distribution report on the income data collected during the pre-Covid period up to March 2020.