Index basics · Consumer Price Index
Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers(CPI-U)
The headline U.S. inflation measure — a monthly price index covering urban consumers, about 93% of the population.
The CPI-U is the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' headline inflation measure. Each month, BLS prices a weighted basket of the goods and services urban households actually buy — food, rent, gasoline, medical care, and hundreds of other items — and publishes the result as an index: a number that tracks how prices have changed relative to a base period, not a dollar amount. 'All Urban Consumers' covers residents of urban and metropolitan areas, roughly 93% of the U.S. population; rural nonmetropolitan households, farm households, and people in institutions or on military bases are outside its scope.
The index level itself is rarely the headline — the inflation rate people quote is the percent change in the index, usually over 12 months. A companion index, the CPI-W (urban wage earners and clerical workers), is the one used for Social Security cost-of-living adjustments; every figure on pumsdata is the CPI-U, shown as the verbatim BLS index values with percent changes derived from them.
Also known as: CPI, Consumer Price Index, headline CPI, cost of living index.
Data: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index (CPI-U). pumsdata is not affiliated with BLS.
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Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers — FAQ
What is consumer price index for all urban consumers in inflation data?+
The headline U.S. inflation measure — a monthly price index covering urban consumers, about 93% of the population. The CPI-U is the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' headline inflation measure. Each month, BLS prices a weighted basket of the goods and services urban households actually buy — food, rent, gasoline, medical care, and hundreds of other items — and publishes the result as an index: a number that tracks how prices have changed relative to a base period, not a dollar amount. 'All Urban Consumers' covers residents of urban and metropolitan areas, roughly 93% of the U.S. population; rural nonmetropolitan households, farm households, and people in institutions or on military bases are outside its scope.
Why does consumer price index for all urban consumers matter?+
The index level itself is rarely the headline — the inflation rate people quote is the percent change in the index, usually over 12 months. A companion index, the CPI-W (urban wage earners and clerical workers), is the one used for Social Security cost-of-living adjustments; every figure on pumsdata is the CPI-U, shown as the verbatim BLS index values with percent changes derived from them.
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.