May 3, 2008
All of Inflation’s Little Parts
Each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics gathers 84,000 prices in about 200 categories — like gasoline, bananas, dresses and garbage collection — to form the Consumer Price Index, one measure of inflation.
It’s among the statistics that the Federal Reserve considered when it cut interest rates on Wednesday. The categories are weighted according to an estimate of what the average American spends, as shown below.
An Average Consumer's Spending
Each shape below represents how much the average American spends in different categories.
Larger shapes make up a larger part of spending.
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Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Michael Balzer, University of Konstanz (Germany)
Matthew Bloch, Shan Carter and Amanda Cox/The New York Times
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