From President Donald J. Trump:
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) released by the government last Thursday showed an 8.2% year-over-year price increase from September 2021 to September 2022.
The CPI has edged down steadily from a 40-year high of 9.1% in June to 8.2% in September.
The official CPI does not tell the whole story of price increases under President Biden. Bidenflation, measured by the TIPP CPI using the same underlying data, stood at 12.8% in September. It was 12.6% in August and July and12.7% in June.
We developed the TIPP CPI, a metric that uses February 2021, the month after President Biden’s inauguration, as its base.
All TIPP CPI measures are anchored to the base month of February 2021. January 2021 was a mixed month under the watch of two presidents, two-thirds by President Trump and one-third by President Biden, so we chose to ignore it, making the TIPP CPI exclusive to the economy under President Biden’s watch. Please note that we use the relevant Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) underlying data but recalibrate it to arrive at the TIPP CPI.
Significant inflation had already set in by the middle of last year. In September 2021, CPI inflation was 5.4 percent. The official CPI will compare future month prices to already inflated bases in the coming months. The year-over-year calculation may moderate the statistics, but you will still feel the pinch of inflation.
TIPP CPI vs. BLS CPI
The following three charts present details about the new metric.
The official CPI reported by BLS is 8.2% for September 2022. Compare this to the TIPP CPI of 12.8%, a 4.6-point difference. Prices have increased by 12.8% since President Biden took office.
Food prices increased by 15.4% since President Biden took office compared to only 11.2% as per BLS CPI, a difference of 4.2 points.
Energy prices increased 39.4% per TIPP CPI compared to 19.8% according to BLS CPI, a difference of 19.6-points.
The Core CPI is the price increase for all items, excluding food and energy. The Core TIPP CPI was 10.2% compared to 6.6% BLS CPI in the year-over-year measure, a 3.6-point difference.
More specifically, gasoline prices have increased by 48.4% since President Biden took office. However, the BLS CPI for gasoline is 18.2%, a difference of 30.2 points.
Read the full article from Tippinsights here.
