Why does your weekly shop still feel ruinous when everyone keeps saying inflation has cooled? Ocado's decision to axe 1,000 jobs in a cost-cutting drive hints at the answer: businesses are still reeling from years of price shocks, even as the pace of increases slows.

The latest consumer price data tells the real story. Since 2021, the cumulative weight of price rises has pushed the cost of living up by 24%. That's not an annual figure. That's the total hit to your purchasing power over four years (Source: ONS, CPIH (Consumer Prices Index including Housing)).

Put another way: what cost £100 in 2021 now costs £124. Your mortgage, your energy bills, your groceries, your rent. All of it, 24% more expensive than when the pandemic restrictions lifted.

This explains why companies like Ocado are still scrambling. The grocery delivery firm isn't just battling current costs; it's dealing with the accumulated pressure of four years of everything getting pricier. Staff wages, warehouse rents, fuel for deliveries, technology infrastructure. None of it has got cheaper.

The numbers show exactly when Britain's cost-of-living crisis began. In 2021, the consumer price index sat at 162,574. By 2022, it had jumped to 178,141. That's a 9.6% leap in a single year. Then came 2023 with another 7.2% rise, followed by 2024's 2.2% increase.

This year's projection of 201,118 represents a 3% rise from 2024. Inflation hawks will call that progress. But for families trying to balance budgets, it's just another layer of pressure on top of the previous increases that never reversed.

The cruel mathematics of compound price rises mean that even 'low' inflation rates now feel crushing. A 3% increase doesn't sound dramatic until you realise it's 3% on top of prices that already climbed 20% in the previous three years.

This is why job cuts like Ocado's feel inevitable across corporate Britain. Companies absorbed years of mounting costs, hoping inflation would peak and reverse. Instead, they got a slower pace of increases on an already inflated base. Something had to give.

For workers facing redundancy, the timing is particularly brutal. They're losing income just as the cumulative effect of four years of price rises reaches its peak. The gap between what people earn and what things cost has widened relentlessly since 2021, and 2025's projected 3% increase will widen it further.

The real story isn't that inflation is cooling. It's that prices have ratcheted up so far that even modest increases now feel unaffordable. Every percentage point lands on a base that's already 20% higher than recent memory.