Stephen Mihm, Columnist

The Consumer Price Index Is Not Economic Reality

The nation’s leading indicator of inflation has always existed as a creature of politics and power, revised and updated in ways that betray its image.

April 13, 2021 at 2:38 PM UTC

By Stephen Mihm

Stephen Mihm, a professor of history at the University of Georgia, is coauthor of “Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance.”

Food prices are climbing, according to the Consumer Price Index.
Photographer: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

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At 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics delivered its latest measure of inflation – the Consumer Price Index – with an aura of objectivity akin to the National Weather Service reporting the latest temperatures:

Lost in translation from bureaucratic spreadsheet to national talking point is an ugly truth: The CPI is no neutral measurement of economic reality. It has always existed as a creature of politics and power, revised and updated in ways that betray its image. How that came to pass is a cautionary tale told by historians like Thomas A. Stapleford.