Reality Index
Reality Index

For journalists, analysts, and researchers

How to use Reality Index.

Reality Index is built to be cited, quoted, embedded, and challenged. This page is the working reference for journalists, analysts, podcasters, and researchers who write about inflation and want a credible alternative to CPI for context, fact-checking, and methodology comparison.

On this page

  1. What Reality Index measures (and what it doesn't)
  2. Citation conventions
  3. Five common workflows
  4. Quick chart reference by topic
  5. Embedding and reusing charts
  6. Press inquiries and interviews
  7. Corrections and challenges

1. What Reality Index measures (and what it doesn't)

Reality Index is a 45-year inflation index using real retail prices and the same household-spending weights that BLS uses for the official CPI. The headline finding: $100 of 1980 goods costs $516 per Reality Index in 2025, vs $391 per official CPI. The Reality Index has run 32.0% faster than CPI over the full window.

Reality Index does not claim CPI is fraudulent, manipulated, or dishonest. CPI is a sophisticated, methodologically transparent statistical product that does exactly what it is designed to do. The argument Reality Index makes is more specific: CPI's methodological choices — hedonic adjustment, substitution effects, owner's equivalent rent — produce a price index that systematically diverges from what families actually pay for the goods and services that make up household life. The divergence is largest in housing, health care, and education. The post-2020 divergence has been the largest in the series's history.

Reality Index is best used when:

Reality Index is not well suited for:

2. Citation conventions

Use whichever of the following citation styles fits your publication. All three are appropriate.

Short citation (news copy, social posts)

Copy-paste format

Reality Index, realityindex.co (Grabien Inc., 2026)

Full citation (long-form pieces, white papers)

Copy-paste format

Reality Index: an alternative inflation index using real retail prices and BLS Consumer Expenditure weights. Grabien Inc., 2026. https://realityindex.co

Academic citation (APA-style)

Copy-paste format

Elliott, T. (2026). Reality Index: an alternative inflation measurement using real retail prices and BLS Consumer Expenditure weights. Grabien Inc. Retrieved from https://realityindex.co

When citing a specific data point or chart, link directly to the canonical chart page rather than the homepage. For example, link to realityindex.co/headline_rate.html rather than the project homepage when referring to the headline inflation rate.

3. Five common workflows

The following are the most common reasons journalists and analysts have approached Reality Index. Each maps a typical reporting situation to the specific Reality Index resource that addresses it.

Workflow 01

A viral chart claims inflation is way worse than the government admits

Typical claim: "Ground beef has doubled since 2020." (Posted by Kobeissi Letter, ZeroHedge, etc.)

  1. Identify the specific item or category being claimed. Reality Index has individual charts for 18 retail items and 6 service categories.
  2. Pull up the relevant chart page (e.g., ground_beef_chart.html) and check the retail dollar series, BLS CPI subindex, and CPI All Items.
  3. Reality Index typically agrees with the underlying retail data. The question becomes: is the framing accurate? Reality Index can confirm "ground beef rose 72% from January 2020 to March 2026" but provide the longer-term context that CPI tracks ground beef reasonably well over a 45-year window.
  4. If the viral claim is roughly right, cite both: the viral source for the immediate point, Reality Index for the methodological context. If wrong, Reality Index data is the rebuttal.
Workflow 02

A reader or source insists "inflation is way worse than the Fed says"

Typical claim: "Real inflation is 8-10% a year. The government is lying."

  1. The 8-10% figure usually traces back to ShadowStats, which back-calculates CPI under 1980s methodology. Reality Index takes a different approach (real retail prices, not methodological back-calculation) and produces a more conservative finding.
  2. Cite the Reality Index headline finding: 32% cumulative gap over 45 years, concentrated almost entirely in the post-2020 period. This is a defensible, measurable, source-backed alternative to ShadowStats.
  3. Direct the reader to headline_rate.html for the cumulative chart and methodology_paper.html for the methodology argument.
Workflow 03

Housing affordability story

Typical claim: "Buying a home today is harder than at any point in modern history."

  1. Reality Index's housing chart uses FHFA House Price Index (the standard for home value), Freddie Mac mortgage rates (the standard for borrowing cost), and computes the all-in annual carrying cost (P&I + property tax + insurance + maintenance) for each year from 1980 to 2025.
  2. Pull up home_prices_chart.html for the price index. Pull up the American Dream Index for the all-in annual housing carrying cost as a share of median household income.
  3. Both are citable. The ADI is particularly useful for "housing as a share of family income" framing, which CPI's owner's equivalent rent does not directly produce.
Workflow 04

Health care cost story

Typical claim: "Family health insurance has become unaffordable for middle-class families."

  1. Reality Index pulls family health premium data from the KFF Annual Employer Health Benefits Survey, the standard reference for U.S. employer health insurance. We track total premium, worker contribution, and deductibles separately.
  2. Pull up healthcare_chart.html for the multi-line breakdown. Family health premium has grown 2.41× faster than CPI All Items over 1999-2025.
  3. The methodology paper covers why CPI's medical care subindex understates premium growth as families experience it (CPI tracks medical services; KFF tracks what employers and workers actually pay).
Workflow 05

"The American Dream is out of reach" story

Typical claim: "It used to be possible to support a family of five on one income. Now it isn't."

  1. The American Dream Index is built for exactly this question. It prices the cost of a fixed 1980 middle-class lifestyle (four-bedroom home, three children, two cars, employer health coverage) every year from 1980 to 2025, against median household income.
  2. Headline finding: the basket cost 159% of median household income in 1980 and 145% in 2025. The squeeze is older than the political class will acknowledge, and the gap has not closed.
  3. The basket specification documents every quantity, every source, and every methodology choice. Reproducible from public data.

4. Quick chart reference by topic

Every chart on Reality Index has its own permalink URL with full editorial framing and the underlying data. The references below are grouped by reporting topic.

Headline rates & composites

Headline inflation rate
RI vs CPI cumulative · 1980–2025
American Dream Index
Annual cost of 1980 lifestyle · 1980–2025
All items composite
18 items on one chart · bucket filters

Housing

Home prices (FHFA)
1975–2025 · 1.93× CPI
Rent of primary residence
1940–2025 · ~1.15× CPI

Health care & education

Family health insurance
1999–2025 · 2.41× CPI
College tuition
1980–2022 · 3.42× CPI

Energy & transportation

Gasoline
1950–2023 · below CPI
Electricity
1979–2025 · 0.83× CPI

Food at home (13 retail items)

Eggs, ground beef, chicken breast, whole milk, cheese, white bread, flour, pasta, coffee, bananas, tomatoes, potatoes, breakfast cereal. Each has its own chart page accessible from the homepage food category.

Taxes & services

Direct tax burden
1980–2024 · the counterintuitive finding
First-class postage
1971–2025 · ~CPI

5. Embedding and reusing charts

Every chart on Reality Index is publishable in your story. Two ways to use:

Link to the canonical chart

Each chart page is a permalink URL. Linking is always the best option because readers get the full editorial context, the underlying data, the methodology footnote, and any updates we make to the data after your story publishes.

Screenshot the chart

Every chart on Reality Index has a "realityindex.co" watermark in the bottom-right corner. Screenshots are fine for use in stories, social posts, broadcast graphics, and presentations. Please preserve the watermark.

Embed-friendly widgets (iframe / oEmbed / chart-as-image API) are on the v1.5 roadmap. For now, link-or-screenshot is the supported pattern.

6. Press inquiries and interviews

Media inquiries

For interviews, methodology questions, data requests, and partnership opportunities, contact Tom Elliott at info@realityindex.co. Tom is available for radio, podcast, and television appearances and can speak to the project's methodology, findings, and editorial reasoning.

For urgent same-day press requests, reference "Reality Index" in the subject line.

Tom Elliott is the founder and editor of Reality Index. He is also the founder of Grabien Inc., a media intelligence service used by newsrooms, monitoring services, and analysts. The project is a Grabien research initiative.

7. Corrections and challenges

Reality Index is built to be challenged. If you spot a data error, a methodology issue, or a finding that does not match your independent reading of the underlying public data, we want to know.

Send corrections to info@realityindex.co with the subject line "Reality Index correction." Substantive corrections receive a response within 48 hours and, where warranted, a public correction on the page itself with a timestamped methodology note.

Methodology disagreements (as distinct from data errors) are welcome and will be addressed editorially. If you think we've chosen the wrong CPI subindex for a particular comparison, the wrong start year for a series, or the wrong category weight, write to us with the specific objection. We will respond, and where we agree, we will publish the change.

The point of Reality Index is to be a more honest reference number for what inflation has actually cost American families. If we can be more honest by changing something, we will.