There are a couple other indexes out there that track total cost of living that are pushing ~10% per year inflation right now.
This is wrong. Food, shelter, and transportation are all included in the basket used to compute CPI. [0]
> The CPI represents all goods and services purchased for consumption by the reference population (U or W). BLS has classified all expenditure items into more than 200 categories, arranged into eight major groups (food and beverages, housing, apparel, transportation, medical care, recreation, education and communication, and other goods and services).
> 9. Is the CPI a cost-of-living index? ... > Both the CPI and a cost-of-living index would reflect changes in the prices of goods and services, such as food and clothing that are directly purchased in the marketplace; but a complete cost-of-living index would go beyond this role to also take into account changes in other governmental or environmental factors that affect consumers' well-being. It is very difficult to determine the proper treatment of public goods, such as safety and education, and other broad concerns, such as health, water quality, and crime, that would constitute a complete cost-of-living framework. Since the CPI does not attempt to quantify all the factors that affect the cost-of-living, it is sometimes termed a conditional cost-of-living index.
Public services are being gutted in the US. I think this explains why cost of living indexes can be north of 10% while the CPI is < 2%.
It doesn’t explain how groceries, rent, medical care and education costs have all skyrocketed without raising the CPI. My guess is that people are spending less than they used to on things like recreation and apparel, due to lack of money.
CPI weights changed in 1980, and seemly when using old weights the CPI is 10% instead.
I've read (I didn't checked with all details, I don't live in US so it is not that relevant to me) that a major change is that the cost of having a shelter had its weights greatly reduced. (I don't mean the "housing" category in general)
Over time, the index has changed in a manner that grossly underestimates the inflation the average person experiences.