There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from doing the same sum every month and getting a worse answer each time. Salary in one column. Rent, school fees, groceries, petrol, electricity in the other. For years now, the second column has been growing faster than the first, and for millions of Pakistani households, the gap between them is no longer a gap; it is a hole they are climbing out of every single month, only to fall back in at the start of the next. This isn’t an abstract economic story. It is the story of a father checking the fuel gauge before deciding whether to take the longer, cheaper route to work. It is a mother recalculating the weekly vegetable budget because onions have suddenly become a luxury item. It is a family quietly moving a child from a private school to a cheaper one, telling themselves it’s temporary, knowing it probably isn’t. Ask any Pakistani homeowner what they’ve noticed most this year, and it won’t be a percentage figure from a government bulletin. It will be something simpler: the same amount of money now buys less. Onion prices alone have surged sharply in recent weeks, and staples like tomatoes and wheat flour have seen sustained, steep increases over the past year. Bread and flour, the most basic items in any kitchen, have gone through repeated price hikes in 2026 alone, not a single shock but a series of them, each one arriving before the household budget has recovered from the last.

Every rupee added at the pump doesn’t stay at the pump; it rides along in every truck that carries vegetables to market, every rickshaw that takes a child to school, every delivery van that stocks a neighbourhood shop.

Every rupee added at the pump doesn’t stay at the pump; it rides along in every truck that carries vegetables to market, every rickshaw that........

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