Which is almost no change. Some news stories said the CPI was flat. In the graph below on the far right you can see that the line for April to May is flat. The numbers I show below will reflect this.
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 313.207 in April and 313.225 in May. Since 313.225/313.207 = 1.000057, that means it was up 0.0057% in May. If we had that every month for 12 months it would be up 0.07%. Which is also basically no change.
The last monthly change that was lower than 0.0057% was the -0.012% change in July 2022 (a slight decrease).
It was 303.365 in May 2023. Since 313.225/303.365 = 1.0325, that means it was up 3.25% over the last 12 months.
The non-seasonally adjusted CPI was 314.069 in May and 304.127 in May 2023. That was up 3.27% also. 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 which was 2.7% higher in May 2024 than May 2023).
For more information, see Inflation slows in May, with consumer prices up 3.3% from a year ago by Jeff Cox of CNBC. Excerpts:
"The consumer price index showed no increase in May as inflation slightly loosened its stubborn grip on the U.S. economy, the Labor Department reported Wednesday.
The CPI, a broad inflation gauge that measures a basket of goods and services costs across the U.S. economy, held flat on the month though it increased 3.3% from a year ago, according to the department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics."
"Excluding volatile food and energy prices, core CPI increased 0.2% on the month and 3.4% from a year ago"
The article also discusses what is going up and what is going on. There is a graph of the monthly year-over-year percent change in prices and core prices going back almost 3 years.
Other related links:
Consumer Price Index Data from 1913 to 2023
Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index
The Bureau of Labor Statistics makes seasonal adjustments. See Consumer Price Index Summary.
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