2025 Consumer Price Index Calculation

      Joint Budget Committee. The United States bureau of labor statistics (BLS) determines the consumer price index (CPI) for each month. At the end of a year, the BLS determines the CPI for that year by averaging the CPI for each month in the year. However, as of March 2026, the BLS did not determine the CPI for the month of October and then determined inflation for 2025 by averaging the CPI for every month besides October in 2025. The BLS's approach to determining the CPI for 2025 overweighted the CPI of the first half of 2025 relative to the second half of 2025, since the BLS included each month from the first half of 2025 and only 5 of the 6 months in the second half of 2025, in determining the CPI for 2025.

     The bill, for 2025 only, determines the CPI for 2025 by averaging the 2 semi-annual BLS CPI determinations for 2025. This approach gives equal weight to the CPI from the first and second halves of 2025.


(Note: This summary applies to this bill as introduced.)