2012-09-08T22:16:00.001-07:00

Posted below for easy reference to all who are seeking this data for other uses, is the United Stated consumer price index. There is great contention in the understating of the rate of inflation in recent years as the BLS has been modifying the formula. It should be noted, however, that this particular statistic can not be precise as the computation would be overwhelming if it included every single item possible as there would also need to have a percentage of total purchases for each item and it could never capture quality differentiation such as if a price of a computer didn't change from one year to the next even though improvements would be made. Being this is the case, there would be much levity in fudging the data for an illicit purpose such as propaganda to the public to get them to throw money into an already overpriced stock market.

There is a core inflation rate that excludes food and energy and is improperly used in the computation of the GDP (I aim to write a column and perhaps also a blog site on this), but in past years could still be utilized for the computation of social security benefits. Basically, the GDP contains food and energy and so the overall inflation rate MUST be subtracted out from the nominal GDP growth rate to obtain the GDP growth rate (adjusted). Ben Bernanke of the Federal Reserve pulled a mathematically incorrect way of calculating the GDP growth rate by excluding the food and energy inflation. The real GDP growth rate has been NEGATIVE for the past few years (within 2012 and back as far as at least 2009...I will narrow this down later). However, PROPAGANDA in putting out FALSE economic data has been the name of the game for the past three years in order to illicitly pump up the stock market. Never before in history was there so much concerted effort on behalf of government, the Federal Reserve (which is private), and the mainstream media companies, which constantly invite so-called "experts" who are perennial stock pumpers, to manipulate the sock market up. This should be not just unlawful, but depending on the actual act, such as by by certain voting members of the Federal Reserve Bank to steal America's money, post it as debt and hand to the wealthiest, they need to be tried on treason as well. I will also note that the population growth rate should also be subtracted to determine if there was any real gain on a per person basis. The inflation due to food and energy has been pulling away from the core inflation rate in the most recent years and thus this should be accounted for. One method I can think of fast that would be a useful statistic would be the core inflation rate plus the two year running average of the combined food and energy inflation rate to knock off some of the fluctuations. However, I do not understand why anyone really has a problem viewing numbers that fluctuate.

In the case of social security benefits, if there is a large increase in total inflation, even if it was partially due to food or energy, the COLA (cost of living adjustment) could be calculated from the actual total inflation. As long there is some inflation, there would be a yearly increase in benefits. Only in the event of deflation would the benefits go down and people should have no problem understanding why their benefits have been lowered. One method to serve social security recipients better would be to utilize not the overall inflation rate for the broad population but have it based on the typical cost of living for low benefit recipients. In this way, whether there are increases or decreases in subsequent yearly benefits, there would be great assurance that the benefits would fairly consistently mirror the actual cost of living for those whom it matters most.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics likes to invoke a seasonal adjustment that can actually give a false impression of the labor force and furthermore since the formula used is questionable, it imparts room for additional error. When looking at data that has seasonal variations, one could simply view the smaller periodical data samplings along with the prior year's data. No fancy seasonal adjustments are necessary.

Please also visit these sites for a further research:
What’s America’s Real Inflation Rate?
Alernate Inflation Charts

Inflation rate, 1914 to 2011 (CPI-U, All Items, from BLS.gov)

Year. Percent change

1913 ---
1914 1.0
1915 1.0
1916 7.9
1917 17.4
1918 18.0
1919 14.6
1920 15.6

1921 -10.5
1922 -6.1
1923 1.8
1924 0.0
1925 2.3
1926 1.1
1927 -1.7
1928 -1.7
1929 0.0
1930 -2.3

1931 -9.0
1932 -9.9
1933 -5.1
1934 3.1
1935 2.2
1936 1.5
1937 3.6
1938 -2.1
1939 -1.4
1940 0.7

1941 5.0
1942 10.9
1943 6.1
1944 1.7
1945 2.3
1946 8.3
1947 14.4
1948 8.1
1949 -1.2
1950 1.3

1951 7.9
1952 1.9
1953 0.8
1954 0.7
1955 -0.4
1956 1.5
1957 3.3
1958 2.8
1959 0.7
1960 1.7

1961 1.0
1962 1.0
1963 1.3
1964 1.3
1965 1.6
1966 2.9
1967 3.1
1968 4.2
1969 5.5
1970 5.7

1971 4.4
1972 3.2
1973 6.2
1974 11.0
1975 9.1
1976 5.8
1977 6.5
1978 7.6
1979 11.3
1980 13.5

1981 10.3
1982 6.2
1983 3.2
1984 4.3
1985 3.6
1986 1.9
1987 3.6
1988 4.1
1989 4.8
1990 5.4

1991 4.2
1992 3.0
1993 3.0
1994 2.6
1995 2.8
1996 3.0
1997 2.3
1998 1.6
1999 2.2
2000 3.4

2001 2.8
2002 1.6
2003 2.3
2004 2.7
2005 3.4
2006 3.2
2007 2.8
2008 3.8
2009 -0.4
2010 1.6

2011 3.2

United States Yearly Inflation Rate - All Items 1914 to 2011