Hacker News Reader

Comment by bs7280 | Hacker News Reader

Remember this is the number the Government is measuring and reporting. The "real" inflation that every day people feel in their wallet is significantly higher.

View on HN

Why is the government measured inflation not the same as real inflation?

Because people can’t internalize regional variance. So since the beginning of time, it’s not noticed when the national number is higher and fraud when it’s lower.

Ah, you're right. A broad, contrarian dismissal is exactly the way you should respond in any conversation related to CPI/inflation.

By the way, that coffee is $9. Sorry, Brazil tariffs and everything else - you understand.

There are legitimate complaints with CPI. The Reddit variety is mostly statistical illiteracy.

> that coffee is $9

Lots of coffee data [1]. One I think tracks a cup in a city is up 17% YoY.

[1] https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/APU0000717311&series_id=CUUR...

I think a broad, contrarian dismissal of a broad, contrarian dismissal of a metric is, while unhelpful, not inappropriate.

Americans spend a significant portion of their income on food and fuel, which are excluded. Historically, these together accounted for about 15% of their income, probably up to 20% after recent price increases.

They are not excluded from CPI. You may be thinking of “core” inflation but the baseline CPI includes those.

It's mentioned in the lede paragraph...

> The index for energy rose 3.9 percent in May, after rising 3.8 percent in April and 10.9 percent in March. The energy index accounted for over sixty percent of the monthly all items increase.

Because they basically pick and choose what's in there.

If you sat down and did the math on what it costs someone to pay rent / mortgage, car insurance, health insurance, daycare, schooling, going out to eat and drink, doing anything for entertainment, go to the grocery store.. it's not a debate that the real inflation is significantly higher all the time than what is used to measure the number.

But that’s exactly what the inflation measures of the BLS is - someone doing the math on what all these things cost.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com