News
Methodology updates and the monthly inflation brief — what a fixed 1980 household basket actually costs — priced with real retail and transaction data and compared to the official CPI, month by month.
A full walk-through of the method — why a fair public critique first cut the headline from ~32% to ~17%, and why extending transaction-price transportation across the full history, then moving to a fixed 2000 basket, brought the cumulative gap to ~32%.
A dated archive of the monthly print — what the fixed 1980 basket cost versus the official CPI, one entry per release. Newest first.
RI +4.31% vs CPI +3.36% YoY · cumulative gap +31.8%
Gasoline kept cooling — +24.6% YoY, down from June — but the monthly gap widened to 94 basis points as the official index decelerated faster than the prices households actually face.
RI +4.41% vs CPI +3.53% YoY · cumulative gap +31.9%
Energy cooled from May’s peak — gasoline eased to +26.7% YoY — and the Reality Index slipped to +4.41%, holding about 88 basis points above the official CPI on its structural housing and vehicle edge.
RI +5.04% vs CPI +4.25% YoY · cumulative gap +32.1%
An energy-led month: gasoline +40.5% pulled the official index up toward the Reality Index, compressing the monthly gap to ~80 basis points.
RI +4.49% vs CPI +3.81% YoY · cumulative gap +32.3%
Restated on the current methodology — fixed 2000 weights, tenure housing, transaction-price transportation, latest-available data. Energy began to accelerate.
RI +4.24% vs CPI +3.26% YoY · cumulative gap +33.2%
Used-vehicle prices kept transportation at the top of the index (restated), the widest spring monthly gap, before the energy surge narrowed the margin.