Question 1

How is the cost-of-living index calculated?

Accepted Answer

For each city we take the official PBS weekly retail prices of essential items, rebase each item to 100 at a base week, and average those price relatives. The result is a transparent index that tracks how the cost of everyday essentials has changed for that city.

Question 2

Which city has the highest cost-of-living increase?

Accepted Answer

The table ranks all 17 cities plus a national figure by their latest index. A higher number means essential-goods prices have risen more since the base week. Rankings shift week to week as new SPI data lands.

Question 3

Where does the data come from?

Accepted Answer

The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), which reports weekly retail prices of essential items across 17 cities. PakDataHub derives the per-city index — PBS publishes item prices but no per-city cost index.

Question 4

Can I get this via the API?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Each city is a series cost_of_living.<city> (e.g. cost_of_living.karachi) on the PakDataHub API — request the full weekly history as JSON or CSV with a free API key.