Cost of Living

State-run oil refiner CPC Corp., Taiwan will maintain its gasoline and diesel prices unchanged for next week, despite an increase in global oil prices last week, the company said Sunday.

New rules introduced Monday have eliminated a scheme allowing people to suspend their National Health Insurance (NHI) contributions while living abroad for more than six months.

An NT$30 (US$0.92) surcharge for taxi rides in New Taipei will be imposed from Jan. 22 to Feb. 2 around the Lunar New Year holiday (Jan. 25-Feb. 2), according to the city government's Transportation Department.

Taipei Rapid Transit Corp. (TRTC), which operates Taipei Metro, has announced that ticket fares are to remain the same, but it plans to reduce the cashback rate for frequent passengers from next year.

Employees in the industry and service sectors received median annual earnings of NT$525,000 (US$16,155) in 2023, according to statistics released by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting, and Statistics (DGBAS) Wednesday.

Passengers using stored-value cards to pay for rides on the metro and light rail services in Kaohsiung will no longer enjoy a 15 percent fare discount from Nov. 1, Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp. announced Friday.

Taoyuan Metro Corp. said Wednesday that it will adjust its fares on Jan. 2, 2025, including abolishing a blanket discount introduced to encourage ridership.

Taiwan's consumer price index (CPI) growth eased to 1.82 percent from a year earlier in September, lower than the 2 percent inflation alert set by the central bank and the lowest since February, helped by a slump in egg prices, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said Wednesday.

The Minimum Wage Deliberation Committee's decision on Wednesday to raise the minimum monthly and hourly wage by 4.08 percent is a reflection of the current consumer price index (CPI), according to academics.

The planned 4.08 percent increase in the minimum wage is expected to benefit 2.57 million workers, including about 368,000 migrant workers, Minister of Labor Ho Pei-shan (何佩珊) said Wednesday.