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CPI Explained: What Goes Into the Inflation Basket — and Why Shelter Weighs So Much

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  When the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that US consumer prices rose 3.7% in the 12 months to September 2026, that single number hid a split story. Gasoline was up 34.2% from a year earlier. Shelter was up 3.2%. Food was up 2.5%. Core prices, which leave out food and energy, were up 2.6%. The headline is not an average of those percentages. It is a weighted average, and the weights explain most of the confusion about inflation. All figures in this post come from the BLS Consumer Price Index release for September 2026 (USDL-26-1574, published October 14, 2026), unless noted otherwise. The basket is spending, not a shopping list The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) tracks the prices of a fixed basket of goods and services that urban households buy for day-to-day living: food, clothing, shelter, fuels, transportation, medical care, and more. It covers urban consumers, who make up over 90% of the US population. People living in rural nonmetropolitan are...
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Gasoline vs Electric: Monthly Fuel Costs Compared With Real Numbers

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For a US driver covering 1,000 miles a month, a gasoline car costs about $117 a month in fuel at 30 mpg and $3.50 a gallon. An EV charged at home costs about $49 a month at 3.5 miles per kWh and $0.17 per kWh. That is $68 a month, or $817 a year, apart. The rest of this post shows the math, how charging method changes it, how diesel compares, and how long fuel savings take to cover a price gap between two cars. A Canadian example, in litres and dollars, follows further below. Try the Fuel Cost Calculator → One note on current prices: the $3.50 figure is an example used by the calculator linked below. The US Energy Information Administration's national average for regular gasoline was $4.284 a gallon in the week of October 19, 2026. At that price, the same 1,000 miles cost $143 in gasoline, so the $117 example is conservative. Prices vary a lot by state: that same week, California averaged $6.03 a gallon and Texas $3.70. The monthly math, step by step The gasoline figure uses three ...
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How to Read a Jobs Report Like an Economist

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Every month, one jobs report produces a dozen different headlines. The way to cut through them is to read five things together: payroll growth against its recent trend, the unemployment rate, revisions to earlier months, which industries actually moved, and what happened to wages, hours, and participation. The September 2026 report is a good practice case: employers added 29,000 jobs, the unemployment rate sat at 4.2%, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) described both as having "changed little." The headline alone says almost nothing. The details say much more. All figures below come from the BLS Employment Situation release for September 2026 (USDL-26-1549), published October 2, 2026, and are seasonally adjusted. Two surveys, one release The jobs report is really two surveys published together. The household survey asks people about their work status and produces the unemployment rate. The establishment survey asks employers about payrolls and produces the nonfarm payr...
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CPI Explained: What Goes Into the Inflation Basket — and Why Shelter Weighs So Much

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Image
  When the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that US consumer prices rose 3.7% in the 12 months to September 2026, that single number hid a split story. Gasoline was up 34.2% from a year earlier. Shelter was up 3.2%. Food was up 2.5%. Core prices, which leave out food and energy, were up 2.6%. The headline is not an average of those percentages. It is a weighted average, and the weights explain most of the confusion about inflation. All figures in this post come from the BLS Consumer Price Index release for September 2026 (USDL-26-1574, published October 14, 2026), unless noted otherwise. The basket is spending, not a shopping list The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) tracks the prices of a fixed basket of goods and services that urban households buy for day-to-day living: food, clothing, shelter, fuels, transportation, medical care, and more. It covers urban consumers, who make up over 90% of the US population. People living in rural nonmetropolitan are...
Read more »