Looking at the link below, the page says the Current Price Index-Urban is “All items less food and energy in U.S. city average, all urban consumers, not seasonally adjusted.”
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUUR0000SA0L1E?output_view=pct_12mths
Questions:
- Is this number most commonly used for reporting inflation in the news?
- Why take out food and energy? I’m guessing it’s because they are volatile. Is that right? Even so, is there another measure that gets at inflation as it hits a family’s wallet month to month?
From listening to Marketplace on public radio, I learned about the personal consumption expenditures index, used by the Federal Open Market Committee.
- Price indexes are available for the U.S., the four Census regions, nine Census divisions, two size of city classes, eight cross-classifications of regions and size-classes, and for 23 local areas. Indexes are available for major groups of consumer expenditures (food and beverages, housing, apparel, transportation, medical care, recreation, education and communications, and other goods and services), for items within each group, and for special categories, such as services.
- Monthly indexes are available for the U.S., the four Census regions, and some local areas. More detailed item indexes are available for the U.S. than for regions and local areas.
- Indexes are available for two population groups: a CPI for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) which covers approximately 93 percent of the total population and a CPI for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) which covers 29 percent of the population.
The CPI usually shown covers all groups and products. Food and energy are broken out because, as you thought, they are volatile, as this chart shows.