Measures · Consumer Price Index
Annual average(M13)
The BLS average of a year's monthly indexes — the basis of annual inflation tables.
The annual average is the mean of a calendar year's monthly index values, which BLS publishes as its own row — period 'M13' — in the CPI files. Annual inflation for a year, the number in year-by-year tables, is the percent change from one year's annual average to the next. That is a different quantity from the December-over-December change: the annual average reflects the whole year's price level, so a spike late in one year shows up partly in that year's average and partly in the next year's.
pumsdata shows the file's own M13 values verbatim — never recomputed from the months. One footnote: BLS still published a 2025 annual average even though October 2025 was never collected (the federal shutdown), so that year's average reflects the eleven published months.
Also known as: annual average index, calendar-year average, annual inflation.
Data: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index (CPI-U). pumsdata is not affiliated with BLS.
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Annual average — FAQ
What is annual average in inflation data?+
The BLS average of a year's monthly indexes — the basis of annual inflation tables. The annual average is the mean of a calendar year's monthly index values, which BLS publishes as its own row — period 'M13' — in the CPI files. Annual inflation for a year, the number in year-by-year tables, is the percent change from one year's annual average to the next. That is a different quantity from the December-over-December change: the annual average reflects the whole year's price level, so a spike late in one year shows up partly in that year's average and partly in the next year's.
Why does annual average matter?+
pumsdata shows the file's own M13 values verbatim — never recomputed from the months. One footnote: BLS still published a 2025 annual average even though October 2025 was never collected (the federal shutdown), so that year's average reflects the eleven published months.
Where does this inflation data come from?+
All figures come from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) — verbatim monthly index values from 1997 to the present for the U.S. city average, census regions, and about two dozen metro areas, with percent changes derived from the indexes. pumsdata is an independent product that makes the data easy to chart and compare, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by BLS.