Definition:
An index that measures the change in price of a representative basket of goods and services such as food, energy, housing, clothing, transportation, medical care, entertainment and education. It's also known as the cost-of-living index.
Importance:
It's important to monitor the CPI excluding food and energy prices for its monthly stability. This is referred to as the "core CPI" and gives a clearer picture of the underlying inflation trend. The rate of change of the core CPI is one of the key measures of inflation for the
Source:
Bureau of Labor statistics, U.S. Department of Labor.
Availability:
Around the 13th of the month at
Frequency:
Monthly.
Revisions:
Seasonal factors are updated in February with the release of January data. This revision affects the last five years of data. Low significance.
Raw Data:
http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.toc.htm
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