While it is true that change in the cost of living and inflation amount to the same thing across an economy with a common currency, the whole reason that people measure cost of living is to make comparisons with other regions. Inflation doesn't vary by region, cost of living does.
In other words, there's a darn good reason that there are two different terms. Nick Me: Except all that you have done here is related two numbers that have no relation and then argued that they anger you. Guess what - some places get more expensive to live in over time. It's usually considered a good thing. Next year I will be living in New York. I will work in Manhattan. I won't, however, live there. Because it's too expensive. These things happen. If where you live gets too expensive, then you move. If you own land there, then you make a nice profit on the deal. That's how these things work. Your argument - that inflation adjusted incomes had risen by 1% while the cost of living had risen by 20% - demonstrated precisely nothing. If inflation had gone up by 40% in the same period of time, then this would be a _good_ thing, not a bad one. Furthermore, because this is a mobile society, it's possible (probable, in fact) that this involved different people. It's even more probable that the people in the bottom 20% at the beginning of your time period are a different set than the people in the bottom 20% at the end of your time period. All of which means that your argument that the two numbers show that something bad happened in your county literally makes no sense. Gautam
