An official website of the United States government
United States Department of Labor
United States Department of Labor
The .gov means it's official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information,
make sure you're on a federal government site.
The site is secure.
The
https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any
information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.
Consumer Price Index
SHARE ON:
Research homepage
CPI Research Series Using Current Methods (CPI-U-RS)
Go to data tables >>
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has made numerous improvements to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) over the past several decades. While these improvements make the present and future CPI more accurate, historical price index series are not adjusted to reflect the improvements. Many researchers, however, expressed an interest in having a historical series that was measured consistently over the entire period. Accordingly, the Consumer Price Index research series using current methods (CPI-U-RS) presents an estimate of the CPI for all Urban Consumers (CPI-U) from 1978 to present that incorporates most of the improvements made over that time span into the entire series.
Note that most of the improvements occurred prior to 2000. The percent change in the CPI-U-RS is very similar to the published CPI-U for years after 2001; many of the differences prior to 1999, however, are substantial.
The CPI-U-RS is in some ways an extension of the CPI-U-X1, an experimental series that shows what the inflation rate in the CPI-U might have been, if the current rental equivalence method of measuring the cost of homeownership had been in place prior to 1983.
The CPI-U-RS has some limitations. First, most estimates are based on BLS research covering a short period of time and extrapolated to a longer period. Therefore, there is considerable uncertainty surrounding the magnitude of the adjustments. Second, there have been several improvements in the CPI not incorporated into the CPI-U-RS, either because they do not represent changes in methodology, because they had negligible impacts on the CPI’s growth rate, or because it was impossible to systematically estimate the impacts of the new methods in past years.
Nonetheless, the CPI-U-RS can serve as a valuable proxy for researchers needing a historical estimate of inflation using current methods. The direct adjustment of individual CPI index series makes this the most detailed and systematic estimate available of a consistent CPI series.
Additional information is available in the CPI research series using current methods, 1978-98 Monthly Labor Review article .
CPI-U-RS Data
- Updated CPI-U-RS, All items, 1977-2018 (PDF) (XLSX)
- Updated CPI-U-RS, All items less food and energy,1977-2018 (PDF) (XLSX)
Experimental indexes for specific categories
CPI-U-XNV
The experimental new vehicle index (CPI-U-XNV) was first published May 15, 2019. This index uses transaction-level new vehicle prices purchased from J.D. Power. This data is being considered for replacement of our currently collected new vehicles data. See the Experimental new vehicle homepage for additional information.
Available data
CPI-U-XNV data are published three business days following the monthly CPI-U data release. See the CPI Release Calendar for publications dates.
Data
Last Modified Date: November 18, 2019