Dating Agencies, Smartphones Added to U.K. Inflation Basket
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The price of smartphones and dating-agency fees will help determine Britain’s inflation rate after the Office for National Statistics added them to the list of goods and services it monitors to gauge living costs.
They will be included for the first time in the basket of about 650 goods and services that make up the consumer prices index and the retail prices index, the agency said in an e-mailed statement released in London today. The revised basket will be incorporated into February’s inflation data, due to be released on March 22.