Consumer prices rose 2.4% annually in January, less than expected

[progree]

19. The CPI has food and energy. The core CPI doesn't. The OP article headlines the CPI, and

presents both the CPI and core CPI in the narrative and the graphs. As do I in my posts.

The Fed considers the core CPI to be the best predictor of FUTURE inflation, and I don't disagree, and I don't know of any economists that disagree -- these things are backtested.

But what people experience is the regular (all items) CPI (assuming its being done honestly, and even then there is plenty of margin of error).

Actually the not-seasonally adjusted version that so far hasn't been presented anywhere in the thread is the closest to what people experience (again assuming honesty in the numbers). Sometimes there's quite a difference between the not-seasonally-adjusted and the seasonally adjusted.

Here's an example from Retail Sales:
LBN Thread: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143614155
the seasonal adjustment process turned a 10.9% increase to a 0.0% increase in December (remember it's the Christmas month ho ho ho)

[] Advance Retail Sales: Retail Trade and Food Services (MARTSMPCSM44X72USN), Not Seasonally Adjusted: +10.9% == https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MARTSMPCSM44X72USN

[] Advance Retail Sales: Retail Trade and Food Services (MARTSMPCSM44X72USS), Seasonally Adjusted: +-0.0% == https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MARTSMPCSM44X72USS