Regulated rail fares in England and Wales are increasing by up to 5.9% as campaigners call for reforms due to unreliable services.

The increase is above last year’s 4.8% hike but far below the rate of inflation.

The government said that it did not want to add to pressures on households.

However, some groups said that after months of poor services and strikes, passengers are not getting value for money.

About 45% of fares are regulated – they are directly influenced by the government. These include most season tickets, travelcards, and some off-peak returns.

Train operators said fares needed to be set at an appropriate level for the rail industry and its customers.

Every month there’s a new figure for inflation – it estimates how much prices are rising across all the goods and services in the economy.

In the 12 months to November 2022 the figure was 10.7%. That means things costing £1 in November 2021 cost more than £1.10 the same time the following year.

Our personal inflation calculator, built by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in collaboration with the BBC, shows you what the inflation rate is for your household, and identifies the items in your household budget that have gone up the most in price over the past year.

People selling their homes have typically had to settle for below the asking price in recent weeks, according to Zoopla, which is predicting house prices will fall by about 5% next year.

The average price achieved in recent weeks has been 3% below a seller’s asking price, when for much of 2021 and the first half of this year it matched the asking price, the property website said. Zoopla said it expects discounts to increase further in 2023.

Since the start of September, one in nine homes have had their original asking price reduced by 5% or more, Zoopla said, and a quarter have had the price cut to some degree, according to the index covering the month of October.

Asking price reductions are greatest in southern England, where sales volumes have fallen the most, with almost one in three homes in the south-east and east of England reducing asking prices to attract demand, the report said.

Annual house price growth slowed to 7.8% last month, down from 8.1% in September and the lowest since November 2021, according to Zoopla data. Demand has fallen 44% since September’s disastrous mini-budget, which drove mortgage rates sharply higher and led to hundreds of deals being pulled from the market.

New sales have dropped by up to 50% in previous hotspots and areas where higher mortgage rates will hit buying power hardest – in southern England, east Midlands and Wales. Sales have fallen less in more affordable areas and in London where market conditions have been weaker. Zoopla expects mortgage rates to fall to about 5% at the turn of the year, from about 6% now for two-year and five-year fixed deals.

The chairman of Britain’s biggest supermarket chain has warned that “the worst is yet to come” on food price inflation, as he predicted it will soon hit 5%.

John Allan, who has chaired Tesco since 2015, told the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme that he was well aware people on very tight budgets were having to choose between food and heating. He said the idea that this was happening was very troubling.

Overall inflation currently stands at 5.4%, a 30-year high, and is predicted to top 6% in the spring, just one element of the cost of living crisis facing UK households. Poverty groups have warned about the impending threat to those on the lowest incomes.

“In some ways the worst is still to come – because although food price inflation in Tesco last quarter was only 1%, we are impacted by rising energy prices. Our suppliers are impacted by rising energy prices. We’re doing all we can to offset it … but that’s the sort of number we’re talking about. Of course, 5%,” he said.

Allan admitted some people would “of course” have less to spend on luxuries, as the price hikes coincide with a rise in national insurance contributions and the £693 increase in the average family’s annual energy bill, to £1,971, both of which come into effect in April.

Wages grew by 2.6% in the three months to January while the unemployment rate fell, according to new data.

The Office for National Statistics said that earnings growth was slightly higher than the 2.5% rate in the previous period.

It adds to evidence that the squeeze on household income may be coming to an end after inflation fell to 2.7% in February.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate ticked lower to 4.3% from 4.4%.

A small increase in the number of unemployed people during the quarter did not dent the overall rise in employment over the last year.

The data was not all positive – the number of unemployment benefit claimants rose by 9,200 to 838,000 in February, that’s the highest level in more than three years.

But John Hawksworth, chief economist at PwC, said the good news in the latest figures outweighed the bad.

British workers are set for the biggest annual pay rise in a decade, according to forecasts from the Bank of England’s agents, as the rising minimum wage and staff shortages finally begin to lift wages above inflation.

Companies expect to increase pay by 3.1% in 2018, compared with 2.6% last year, according to the latest survey of private-sector employers by the Bank’s network of agents across the country. A total of 368 businesses responded to the survey carried out between late November and mid-January, accounting for 845,000 UK employees.

The early indications for pay growth in the report, which is closely watched by rate-setters on the Bank’s monetary policy committee, suggest wages should begin to rise above the rate of inflation, which stood at 3% in January. The survey pointed to pay growth across the board, barring the construction sector, which is flirting with recession amid falling rates of work since the Brexit vote.

Britain is experiencing a rapid decline in living standards with the biggest squeeze in workers’ pay since 2014, according to the latest official data.

Regular pay adjusted to account for the impact of inflation fell by 0.6% year on year in the three months to April. It was the weakest data since the summer months in 2014, according to the Office for National Statistics. The decline followed a 0.4% drop in the three months to March.

Trade unions reacted with dismay to the figures. Frances O’Grady, general secretary of union umbrella body the TUC, warned that Britain was heading for a fresh crisis in living standards.

“Real wages have fallen for the second month in a row. Unless the government gets its act together, we’ll soon be in the middle of another cost of living crisis,” she said.

Wage growth is lagging behind inflation for the first time since mid-2014, official figures show.

Average weekly earnings excluding bonuses increased by 2.1%. in the three months to March, while inflation rose by 2.3% in the year to March 2017.

In the first three months of this year, wages fell by 0.2%.

Meanwhile, the number of unemployed people fell by 53,000 to 1.54 million in the three months to March, said the Office for National Statistics.

The UK unemployment rate has fallen to 4.6%, its lowest in 42 years,

The jobless rate has not been lower since the June to August period of 1975.

The employment rate, the proportion of 16 to 64 year olds in work, was 74.8%, the highest since records began in 1971.

Rising fuel and food prices helped to push last month’s inflation rate to the highest since September 2013.

Inflation as measured by the Office for National Statistics’ Consumer Prices Index (CPI) jumped to 2.3% in February – up from 1.8% in January.

The increase has pushed the rate above the Bank of England’s 2% target.

Food prices recorded their first annual increase for more than two-and-a-half years, standing 0.3% higher in February than a year earlier.

The Bank of England has said it expects inflation will peak at 2.8% next year, although some economists think the rate could rise above 3%.

Real terms pay fell for six straight years between 2008 and 2014, as inflation consistently outpaced wage growth. However, that trend has been in reverse since late 2014 giving households a boost. The latest figures showed wage growth running at 1.8% including bonuses in the three months to January.

The consumer prices index – Britain’s official inflation measure – has not fallen to zero since comparable records began in 1989. However, unofficial estimates suggest it might have been lower in 1960.