The Seasonally Adjusted CPI Was up 0.17% in July & 3.3% over the last 12 months

See Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: All Items in U.S. City Average from FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) compiled by the Research Division at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis for data on the seasonally adjusted CPI.

That site shows a graph but if you click on the Download button you will get the actual numbers in Microsoft Excel.

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: All Items in U.S. City Average (CPIAUCSL) was 304.348 in July and 303.841 in June. Since 304.348/303.841 = 1.0017 (which, I guess, rounds off to 1.002), that means it was up 0.17% in July (media reports might say 0.20% due to rounding). If we had that every month for 12 months it would be up just 2.02%.

It was 294.628 in July 2022. Since 304.348/294.628 = 1.033, that means it was up 3.3% over the last 12 months.

The non-seasonally adjusted CPI was 305.691 in July and 296.276 in July 2022. That was up 3.2% also since 305.691/296.276 = 1.032. So pretty close to the seasonally adjusted CPI. This is still above the Fed's target of 2.0% (although they prefer to use the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index).

The percentage of 25-54 year-olds employed rose from 80.0% in June 2022 to 80.9% in July 2023. So it is good to see the employment picture improving at the same time the inflation news is getting better.  

The table below shows the percentage increase in seasonally adjusted CPI over the previous 12 months. For example, it was just 1.39% higher in January 2021 than it was in January 2020. But in June 2022 it was 8.93% higher than it was in June 2021. There is some good news since this 12 month rate has been falling.

Jan	2021	1.39%		Jan	2022	7.60%
Feb	2021	1.69%		Feb	2022	7.95%
Mar	2021	2.63%		Mar	2022	8.52%
April	2021	4.13%		April	2022	8.23%
May	2021	4.92%		May	2022	8.50%
June	2021	5.28%		June	2022	8.93%
July	2021	5.22%		July	2022	8.41%
Aug	2021	5.19%		Aug	2022	8.23%
Sept	2021	5.38%		Sept	2022	8.21%
Oct	2021	6.24%		Oct	2022	7.76%
Nov	2021	6.86%		Nov	2022	7.14%
Dec	2021	7.19%		Dec	2022	6.44%
				Jan	2023	6.35%
				Feb	2023	5.99%
				Mar	2023	4.99%
				April	2023	4.96%
				May	2023	4.13%

For more information, see Inflation rises for the first time in 12 months—but it’s not as bad as it looks by Mike Winters of CNBC. Excerpts:

"After a year of monthly declines, the year-over-year inflation rate has risen from 3% to 3.2%, still well above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%, according to the Labor Bureau’s latest consumer index report.

However, the data is not as scary as that might sound.

The increase is partly due to the way energy costs are accounted for in the report, as year-over-year inflation no longer reflects the dramatic climb down from peak prices in June 2022, when average gas prices hit $5 per gallon.

While rising oil prices are an ever-present concern, recent energy price increases have been “amplified in the year-over-year inflation numbers,” says Kurt Rankin, senior economist at PNC Financial Services Group.

Similarly, housing costs have cooled in 2023, but there’s a months-long lag in the way data is represented in Labor Bureau reports. Moderating prices for houses and rent are expected to help lower core inflation in future CPI reports, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

To get a better sense of where inflation is headed, the Federal Reserve looks to core inflation, which measures the price of all goods and services excluding volatile food and energy prices.

Core inflation continued to cool by 0.2%, as it did in June, after six months of increases closer to 0.4%."

Other related links:

Consumer Price Index Data from 1913 to 2023

Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index

Click here to see the BLS data on The Percentage Of 25-54 Year-Olds Employed 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics makes seasonal adjustments. See Consumer Price Index Summary.