The Economy and You #13: A Regional Consumer Price Index
In my last article, I described how the national Consumer Price Index or CPI represents the spending patterns for all goods and services for all urban consumers (denoted as CPI-U) which represents about 87 percent of the total U.S. population.
On a monthly basis the national, or U.S. City Average, CPI is published including the various components used to calculate the CPI. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) also publishes CPI indexes (both CPI-U and CPI-W) for the four census regions: Northeast, Midwest (formerly North Central), South, and West. Monthly indexes also are published for urban areas classified by population size: all metropolitan areas over 1.5 million, metropolitan areas smaller than 1.5 million, and all non-metropolitan urban areas. Indexes are available as well within each region, cross-classified by area population size. The BLS also publishes indexes for 27 local areas. These indexes are byproducts of the national CPI program. Each local index has a much smaller sample size than the national or regional indexes and is, therefore, subject to substantially more sampling and other measurement error. As a result, local-area indexes are more volatile than the national or regional indexes.
BLS publishes three major metropolitan areas monthly: 1) Chicago-Gary-Kenosha, IL-IN-WI; 2) Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County, CA; and 3) New York-Northern NJ-Long Island, NY-NJ-CT-PA.
Data are published for another group of 13 metropolitan areas on a semiannual basis. These indexes which use 6-month averages (January-June and July-December) are published with the release of the national CPI for July and January respectively in August and February. These metropolitan areas that include Anchorage, Alaska and Honolulu, Hawaii, also include two Wisconsin metropolitan regions: Milwaukee-Racine,WIand Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI.
Anyone can receive recorded summaries of CPI data by calling any of the following CPI hotlines:
Milwaukee: 414-276-2579
Minneapolis-St. Paul : 612-725-3580
Chicago: 312-725-1883
If you want to find more information about the CPI, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has a website that contains extensive information on the CPI including historical data and explanations of how the data is collected and compiled. Visit www.bls.gov/cpi/home.htm.
Related articles
- The Economy and You: What is the Consumer Price Index (CPI)? (wistatetreasury.wordpress.com)
Wisconsin State Treasury 