High cost of living top priority for Israeli voters, poll shows

Despite Israelis’ reputation as a people overwhelmingly concerned by security issues, a new poll has found that the single most important issue for a large plurality of voters is the economy and the country’s increasingly high cost of living.

According to the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem-based think tank, 44 percent of Israelis cited their parties’ economic platforms “and their plans to bring down the high cost of living” as their primary consideration when deciding for whom to vote.

This is significantly higher than the identity of party leaders (24 percent), party positions on issues of religion and state (14 percent) and climate issues (2 percent). Only 11 percent of the 750 respondents polled last month stated that their vote was linked to their party’s platform on foreign policy and security issues.

The IDI found that 85 percent of Israelis believe that living costs in Israel are higher relative to most Western countries, with respondents reporting an 8.5 percent rise in household expenses. And while 55 percent said that their income had not changed over the course of the past year, a quarter said that their income had decreased while only 15 percent reported an increase.

Food (26 percent) and housing (25 percent) were listed as the greatest financial burdens, followed by energy (15.5 percent), taxation (13 percent), childcare (6 percent), medical services (4 percent), tuition (3 percent) and transport (3 percent).

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The cost of living in Israel is the seventh highest in the world, leading expensive countries such as Singapore, Luxembourg and Hong Kong, according to a ranking based on the Numbeo crowdsourced global database released this January.

According to this index, which included 139 countries and territories, the only six countries with a higher cost of living are Bermuda, the most expensive country according to this database, followed by Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Barbados, and Jersey, a self-governing United Kingdom dependency.

However, Israel ranked 21st in housing rental prices. When these are added to the calculation, Israel ranks 10th in the world in terms of cost of living.

Israel ranked 13th in the world in the price of food and other basic home products. For restaurant prices, Israel was the sixth most expensive country in the world, topped only by Bermuda, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Denmark.

As to why Israeli prices are so high to begin with, the usual answers are monopolies, ineffective regulation, customs and other barriers to competition, and even the cost kashrut places on food, restaurants and hotels as well as Israel’s very low rate of productivity.

Adding to the high prices (which some economists argue are not as high as commonly believed), Israeli salaries are lower than the OECD average, making it harder to earn a living here.

In February, then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett introduced an economic package worth 4.4 billion shekels ($1.37 billion) to tackle the cost of living crisis in Israel, vowing to uphold “a new contract between working families and the state.”

The headline policy will give families a 223 shekel tax reduction per child aged between 6 and 12, meaning that a family with two working parents and three children will save over 1,300 shekels per month.

Although noting that inflation is comparatively low in Israel, Bennett said that prices at supermarkets have reached an “impossible” level.

Last month, Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Economy Minister Orna Barbivai announced that bread prices in Israel will rise gradually over the next few months, until price controls will ultimately be lifted in April.