Wages / Energy / Purchasing power
Editorial question
When the average improves, whose budget is actually getting easier?
The receipt tells two stories.
INSEE’s final September 2026 release puts consumer prices 3.1% above a year earlier, with energy prices up 21.3%. Yet the overall index fell 0.3% from August: monthly decline and annual increase can coexist.
The category bars show each category’s own annual rate, not its contribution to total inflation. Households with different spending patterns feel different pressures.
Slower inflation is not cheaper living.
Inflation is the rate of change in prices. A lower positive rate normally means prices rise more slowly; it does not reverse earlier increases. The chart plots observed annual rates, not a cumulative price-level index.
CPI and harmonised HICP are separate measures and can differ. The switch deliberately shows them separately rather than combining a monthly observation with an annual forecast.
Energy travels through the economy.
Banque de France’s September forecast identifies renewed energy pressures linked to the Middle East conflict, oil and gas prices and refining margins. Higher input costs can pass into transport, agriculture, manufactured goods and services.
The diagram shows channels, not quantified shares or proof that energy explains every price increase. Contracts, taxes, competition and the timing of wage negotiations help determine how a shock is absorbed.
The wage after prices.
The September forecast puts average nominal wage growth at 2.0% for 2026 and annual-average HICP inflation at 2.3%. These are forecasts for averages, not September’s observed CPI.
A simplified real-wage calculation is (1 + nominal growth) / (1 + price growth) − 1. It does not measure a household’s disposable income after taxes, benefits, changing hours or employment. Nor is it the institution’s separate aggregate wage-purchasing-power forecast.
Your basket is not the national basket.
Long commutes and high heating needs give a household different exposure from one that spends more on services. Change the energy and food weights to see how the published category rates interact.
This is a hypothetical three-category sensitivity exercise. Its weights are not INSEE’s national weights. It cannot reproduce a household’s actual inflation index or model rents, substitution and detailed purchases.
From the payslip to the street.
INSEE’s September outlook expected real wages to stagnate during 2026 and remain below their 2021 level at year-end. It also projected weaker disposable-income purchasing power. These forecasts are different measures from a monthly CPI headline.
The current mobilization links schools, wages and living costs. An average cannot establish whether a particular family can pay its next bill. Policy responses—wages, benefits, price measures and public investment—have different costs and distributional consequences.
Chart data and scope
INSEE final September 2026 CPI: all items annual +3.1%, monthly -0.3%; energy +21.3%; services +2.4%; food +1.4%; manufactured goods -0.3%; tobacco +3.3%. Annual CPI January–September 2026: 0.3, 0.9, 1.7, 2.2, 2.4, 1.8, 2.1, 2.4, 3.1%. HICP: 0.4, 1.1, 2.0, 2.5, 2.8, 2.0, 2.4, 2.6, 3.4%.