The Seasonally Adjusted CPI Was up 0.244% in October

Here are the changes in the seasonally adjusted CPI each of the last six months:

May  0.0057%
June  -0.0562%
July  0.1549%
Aug  0.1872%
Sep  0.1799%
Oct  0.2441%

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 315.454 in Oct. and 314.686 in Sept. Since 315.454/314.686 = 1.00244, that means it was up 0.244% (news stories are rounding this off to 0.2%). If we had that every month for 12 months it would be up 2.96%.

It was 307.531 in Oct. 2023. Since 315.454/307.531 = 1.02576, that means it was up 2.576% over the last 12 months (news stories round this to 2.6%).

In the last 6 months it is up just 0.717%. If we had that for 12 months it would be up 1.44%.

The non-seasonally adjusted CPI was 315.664 in Oct. and 307.671 in Oct. 2023. That was up 2.60%. 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 2.1% higher in Sep. 2024 than Sep. 2023). 

For more information, see Annual inflation rate hit 2.6% in October, meeting expectations by Jeff Cox of CNBC. Excerpts:

"Inflation perked up in October though pretty much in line with Wall Street expectations, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday.

The consumer price index, which measures costs across a spectrum of goods and services, increased 0.2% for the month. That took the 12-month inflation rate to 2.6%, up 0.2 percentage point from September.

The readings were both in line with the Dow Jones estimates.

Excluding food and energy, the move was even more pronounced. Core CPI accelerated 0.3% for the month and was at 3.3% annually, also meeting forecasts."

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 for All Urban Consumers: All Items Less Food and Energy in U.S. City Average (CPILFESL) This is also from from FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data), compiled by the Research Division at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. It has the seasonally adjusted core CPI.

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.