The Seasonally Adjusted CPI Was up 0.15% in July (after being down 0.056% in June & being up only 0.0057% in May)

The Seasonally Adjusted CPI Was up 0.15% in July (news reports must be rounding that up to 0.2%).

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 313.049 in June and 313.534 in July. Since 313.534/313.049 = 1.0015, that means it was up 0.015%. If we had that every month for 12 months it would be up 1.88%. 

It was 304.628 in July 2023. Since 313.534/304.628 = 1.029, that means it was up 2.9% over the last 12 months.

The non-seasonally adjusted CPI was 314.540 in July and 305.691 in July 2023. That was up 2.9%. 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 2.5% higher in May 2024 than May 2023).

For more information, see Annual inflation rate slows to 2.9% in July, lowest since 2021 by Jeff Cox of CNBC. Excerpts:

"Inflation rose as expected in July [I think he meant prices rose but as my title to this post indicates the inflation rate was higher in July than in June since the CPI was actually down in June-also notice that his headline say the inflation rate slows then his first sentence inflation rose], driven by higher housing-related costs, according to a Labor Department report Wednesday that is likely to keep an interest rate cut on the table in September [for an interest rate cut to be on the table the inflation would need to still be low or falling].

The consumer price index, a broad-based measure of prices for goods and services, increased 0.2% for the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.9%. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for respective readings of 0.2% and 3%.

Excluding food and energy, core CPI came in at a 0.2% monthly increase and a 3.2% annual rate, meeting expectations.

The annual rate is the lowest since March 2021, while the core is the lowest since April 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report. Headline inflation was 3% in June."

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.