{"id":29668,"date":"2018-01-12T20:14:40","date_gmt":"2018-01-13T01:14:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=29668"},"modified":"2018-01-12T20:14:40","modified_gmt":"2018-01-13T01:14:40","slug":"food-whats-in-your-basket-how-fast-are-prices-rising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=29668","title":{"rendered":"Food: What’s In Your Basket? How Fast Are Prices Rising?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Food: What’s In Your Basket? How Fast Are Prices Rising?<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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The BLS says the CPI rose 2.1% in December from a year ago. Food rose 1.6%. I called the BLS and filled in some numbers.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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In CPI Up 0.1 Percent: How Much is the CPI Understated?<\/a> I disputed the BLS’s year-over-year overall inflation figure of 2.1%, specifically citing housing and the cost of health insurance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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I found the reported food increase reasonable, others didn’t. Whether or not you find the food index believable depends on two things.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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  1. What you buy<\/li>\n
  2. How you shop<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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    Reader AWC pointed out this BLS article from March of 2017: Prices for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs down 7 percent since August 2015 peak<\/a>.\u200b<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    I downloaded the data and started plugging in numbers for December 2017. The index numbers did not match, so I called the BLS. The person directed me to data downloads which I also found on my own. I still could not match the downloaded numbers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    What happened is the data for the the preceding chart was indexed to 2007 but the main index is to 1982.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    I asked the BLS agent for year-over-year increases of items and the percentages matched.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    CPI Select Food Items<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    I calculated all but the last row from the March article after verifying percentages with the BLS. The last row was read to me over the phone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    I created the main graph from the above chart.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    How Do You Shop?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    \u200bYour percentages may vary substantially from the above chart.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    Mine are cheaper because I buy items on sale and freeze them. Sale prices fluctuate less than non-sale prices.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    Properly wrapped food will last a year or more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Food: What’s In Your Basket? How Fast Are Prices Rising? The BLS says the CPI rose 2.1% in December from a year ago. Food rose 1.6%. I called the BLS and filled in some numbers. In CPI Up 0.1 Percent: How Much is the CPI Understated? I disputed the BLS’s year-over-year overall inflation figure of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[926,3279,15374,172,322,426,14648,13390],"class_list":["post-29668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-bls","tag-bureau-of-labor-statistics","tag-consumer-price-inflation","tag-cpi","tag-food-prices","tag-inflation","tag-michael-shedlock","tag-mishtalk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29669,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29668\/revisions\/29669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}