February 14, 2025
When shoppers complain about the inflation rate, they are really angry about how grocery prices have gone up.
October 21, 2024
Because President Lyndon Johnson asked for a shorthand look at economic happiness, we wound up with the Misery Index.
November 28, 2023
While the trajectory of consumer price changes should make us happy, instead we've responded with concern.
July 14, 2023
Looking back and ahead, we can observe used car prices to understand and predict what is happening to inflation.
September 12, 2022
Recalling the Misery Index and concerns about inflation, we can ask whether economists believe that inflation or unemployment make us sadder.
June 18, 2020
Because a Covid-19 basket of goods and services has a different inflation rate from the CPI basket, the cost of living might not be what we think it is.
April 28, 2019
Although the BLS reports the CPI (Consumer Price Index) inflation rate each month, our own household could see different price changes.
December 24, 2018
By calculating Santa's wages through comparable occupations, we can determine if his yearly earnings increases are similar to U.S. workers.
November 20, 2018
Like the CPI measures purchasing power through the dollar's inflation rate, we can observe waistline changes through clothing size inflation.
July 23, 2017
To decide the strength of our economic recovery since the Great Recession, we can use seven numbers or just one that might be most important.
February 13, 2015
As the source of monetary policy, the Federal Reserve has to decide if interest rates should rise when inflation is low but a jobs recovery has begun.