Affordability
What one list of 8 staples costs as a share of the average employee wage, province by province, with its scope beside it. The two published figures behind it. What neither can tell you.
Basket cost as a share of the average employee wage
One list of 8 staples against each province’s own average employee wage. Employees only, not households; the scope is beside every figure.
7,3%
of the average monthly net wage of employees in Kalimantan Timur. One Essential Basic list (8 staples in fixed quantities) cost Rp 332.350 there on 13 Oct 2026; the Feb 2026 wage was Rp 4.561.415.
26th highest of 28 provinces compared. Median province: 10,5%.
- Employees only: the BPS Sakernas average (mean) monthly net wage of employees — buruh, karyawan and pegawai — in each province. It is not household income: the self-employed, unpaid family workers, employers and the unemployed are not in it, and high earners pull the mean up.
- One Essential Basic list: 8 staples in fixed quantities (5 kg Medium-grade rice, 2 kg Broiler chicken meat, 1 kg Broiler chicken eggs, 1 kg Shallots, 0.5 kg Garlic, 2 litres Bulk cooking oil, 1 kg Local granulated sugar, 0.25 kg Red bird’s eye chilli) at traditional-market prices. Not a month of food, not anyone’s actual shopping, and no rent, transport, electricity, health or education.
- Prices: 13 Oct 2026. Wage: Feb 2026, released by BPS on 15 Jul 2026. The wage is 7 months older than the prices and is not adjusted to the basket date.
- Each province against its own wage. 28 of 38 provinces compared; the others are listed with the reason. There is no national figure: no national basket cost exists, and averaging provinces would need weights this site does not have.
| Province | Basket | Avg. employee wage | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nusa Tenggara Timur | Rp 333.350 | Rp 2.563.541 | 13,0% |
| Jawa Tengah | Rp 310.613 | Rp 2.462.759 | 12,6% |
| Gorontalo | Rp 351.163 | Rp 2.843.777 | 12,3% |
| Lampung | Rp 310.613 | Rp 2.571.448 | 12,1% |
| Bengkulu | Rp 328.475 | Rp 2.773.023 | 11,8% |
| Kalimantan Barat | Rp 349.988 | Rp 2.962.374 | 11,8% |
| Maluku Utara | Rp 413.750 | Rp 3.566.838 | 11,6% |
| Sumatera Utara | Rp 328.238 | Rp 2.834.664 | 11,6% |
| Sulawesi Barat | Rp 312.400 | Rp 2.749.811 | 11,4% |
| Nusa Tenggara Barat | Rp 299.650 | Rp 2.678.084 | 11,2% |
| Jawa Timur | Rp 298.175 | Rp 2.715.212 | 11,0% |
| D.I Yogyakarta | Rp 318.525 | Rp 2.940.990 | 10,8% |
| Sulawesi Tenggara | Rp 343.263 | Rp 3.201.344 | 10,7% |
| Sumatera Selatan | Rp 316.350 | Rp 2.974.233 | 10,6% |
| Kalimantan Selatan | Rp 354.013 | Rp 3.393.313 | 10,4% |
| Kalimantan Tengah | Rp 358.175 | Rp 3.542.959 | 10,1% |
| Sulawesi Utara | Rp 349.925 | Rp 3.486.792 | 10,0% |
| Jambi | Rp 313.413 | Rp 3.154.942 | 9,9% |
| Riau | Rp 315.263 | Rp 3.204.627 | 9,8% |
| Sulawesi Tengah | Rp 336.500 | Rp 3.436.857 | 9,8% |
| Sulawesi Selatan | Rp 301.625 | Rp 3.095.285 | 9,7% |
| Kalimantan Utara | Rp 371.225 | Rp 3.963.394 | 9,4% |
| Jawa Barat | Rp 320.425 | Rp 3.712.133 | 8,6% |
| Bali | Rp 317.113 | Rp 4.064.938 | 7,8% |
| Banten | Rp 319.888 | Rp 4.197.367 | 7,6% |
| Kalimantan Timur | Rp 332.350 | Rp 4.561.415 | 7,3% |
| Kepulauan Riau | Rp 317.600 | Rp 4.740.135 | 6,7% |
| DKI Jakarta | Rp 338.825 | Rp 5.229.472 | 6,5% |
Not compared (10)
- Aceh: Not all staples priced on this date.
- Sumatera Barat: Not all staples priced on this date.
- Kepulauan Bangka Belitung: Not all staples priced on this date.
- Maluku: Not all staples priced on this date.
- Papua: Prices use pre-2022 boundaries; the wage uses current ones.
- Papua Barat: Prices use pre-2022 boundaries; the wage uses current ones.
- Papua Selatan: No market prices from the source.
- Papua Tengah: No market prices from the source.
- Papua Pegunungan: No market prices from the source.
- Papua Barat Daya: No market prices from the source.
What this is not
- What share of anyone’s actual income goes on food. The basket is a fixed list of 8 staples in round quantities, not a measurement of what anyone buys, and the wage is not household income.
- Whether anyone has enough to eat. One basket is not a month of food, not one person’s needs and not a household’s, and it excludes rent, transport, electricity, health and education.
- Anything about the self-employed, unpaid family workers, employers or the unemployed. The wage is the mean net wage of employees in the BPS Sakernas survey, pulled up by high earners, and most Indonesian work is informal.
- How things are changing. The wage is fixed for months while prices move daily, so any movement in the share is only price movement; no trend of the share is published.
- It is not a measure of purchasing power, and must never be described as one.
- A national figure. No national basket cost exists, and averaging provinces would need weights this platform does not have.
Published under the owner decision 2026-10-11, due for review by 2026-12-11. Both publishers stand at an accepted risk rather than a granted permission; see where each one stands.
Wage and basket cost, side by side
The two published figures behind the share above, each with its own publisher, population and period.
Kalimantan Timur by wage
#4of 38
Average net wage of employees, Februari 2026. Rank among the provinces the publisher reports.
Highest to lowest province
2.1×Rp 2,8 jt apart
A single national wage figure hides this. 38 provinces reported, from Rp 2.462.759 to Rp 5.229.472 a month.
Wage age vs basket
7 moapart
The wage describes Februari 2026; the basket cost is from 13 October 2026. Sakernas publishes twice a year, so the wage will not move again until the next round.
Ranking and spread describe the Average net wage of employees series only — one publisher, one release, nothing divided by a price. The full series, including every province.
Monitored basket cost
Rp 332.350
Essential Basic
- Publisher:
- Bank Indonesia PIHPS, collected by this platform
- Reference period:
- 13 October 2026
Average net monthly wage
Rp 4.561.415
Average net wage of employees
- Publisher:
- Badan Pusat Statistik (Statistics Indonesia)
- Reference period:
- Februari 2026
Source URL recorded with the figure. The credential is redacted from it.
Average net wage of employees represents people in paid employment covered by the publisher’s survey. It excludes the self-employed, unpaid family workers, employers, and everyone not working — so it is not average income and not household income.
Essential Basic prices 8 items in fixed quantities at prices posted at the traditional markets the source monitors. It is not what any particular household paid, and does not include modern-trade or online prices. It contains selected monitored food commodities and does not represent total household expenditure: housing, transport, electricity, health, and education are not in it.
The price basket reflects the 34 of 38 provinces the source monitors. The wage series is published for Kalimantan Timur, which is the same area the basket prices.
The wage figure describes Februari 2026 and is published semiannual. The basket cost covers 13 October 2026. The two are measured over different publication frequencies, and the wage is never interpolated onto dates its publisher did not describe.
Carried with these figures
- These are two separately published figures shown side by side, each with its own scope and period. The one published share of the wage is a separate figure, computed under its own rules with both dates stated.
- The wage describes employees only. It excludes the self-employed, unpaid family workers, employers, and the unemployed, so it is not average household income.
- The basket contains selected food commodities and does not represent total household expenditure.
- Each figure has its own reference period, shown with it. The wage is a semi-annual survey estimate and is usually older than the basket cost.
wage_vs_basket_cost_context_v1 · affordability_execution_gate_v1 · context only · Kalimantan Timur
What is not published, and why
One line each. The full question matrix for every metric is on the API, not here.
| Metric | Status | What it would answer |
|---|---|---|
| Basket cost as a share of the average employee wagedivides | published | In one province, what share of the latest published average monthly net wage of employees would one Essential Basic list of 8 staples cost at that province’s traditional-market prices? |
| Work-time equivalentdivides | needs permission | How many hours of work at a named wage benchmark, under a named and cited working-hours convention, correspond to the cost of this basket? |
| Affordability changedivides | needs permission | How has the basket-to-wage ratio changed between two reference periods, for the same basket version, the same wage series, and the same geography? |
| Wage and basket cost, side by side | published | What is the latest published wage figure for a scope, and what does the monitored basket cost there — each stated with its own period, population, and publisher? |
| Regional affordability contextdivides | in the table above | For provinces where both a provincial basket cost and a provincial wage figure exist, how does each province’s basket-to-wage ratio compare with the others in that same set? |
One metric that divides is published, under the owner decision of 2026-10-11, which accepts both publishers’ recorded risk with review dates in place of their permission. Its cross-province table is the regional comparison; it is not published as a separate ranking product. The other two stay blocked on permission, not on code or data, and that decision does not extend to them. Each publisher’s position.
Considered and declined
Recorded so an absent metric does not read as an unfinished one.
Purchasing Power Index
A single index compresses a basket scope, an income population, a geography, and a period into one number, and the compression is where the misreading happens. An index value carries none of that on its face: a reader cannot tell which commodities it prices or whose earnings it divides by. A sentence naming the basket, the wage benchmark, the province, and the reference period carries all four, because it says them.
Would be reconsidered when: Several affordability primitives have been validated against real data, and there is evidence that readers understand them. Not before, and not as a convenience.
Affordability score out of 100
A bounded score needs a scale, and any scale is a choice about what counts as good. The choice would be ours, it would be invisible in the number, and it would be read as a measurement.
Would be reconsidered when: Never in this form. A score would need a published, defended scale.
Headlines asserting a change in purchasing power
Asserts a change in a quantity the platform does not measure. What could be measured is the change in a named basket-to-wage ratio, which is `affordability_change_v1` and says so.
Would be reconsidered when: Not applicable: the honest version of this claim is a different sentence.
Household inflation
Requires household expenditure weights this platform does not have and a basket that represents household consumption, which the monitored basket does not.
Would be reconsidered when: A validated household expenditure survey is integrated, which is not planned.
The terminology on this page is fixed rather than editorial: the approved and restricted terms are enforced in code and checked by an interface audit. See the methodology register for every metric this platform computes today, and the source registry for the permission position of each publisher.