Everyday prices nowcasted to outstripping measured CPI and subindices:
Figure 1: CPI-all urban (bold black), CPI wage earners and clerical (green), CPI ex-shelter (purple), CPI chained (red), PCE deflator (chartreuse), AIER Everday Price Index (pink), all 2025M01=1.0, on log scale. Chained CPI is n.s.a. April AIER EPI is nowcasted using CPI and gasoline price changes. May PCE deflator is nowcasted as of 6/10. Source: BLS, BEA via FRED, AIER, Cleveland Fed, and author’s calculations.
Interestingly, the CPI for wage earners and clerical workers is showing greater acceleration than that for all urban consumers (which is appropriate for about a household at about the 70th income percentile of income). By my estimate, “everyday prices” will have risen about 8.6% from January 2025, compared to 4.7% for headline CPI.
These differential inflation rates show up in calculations of the inflation-adjusted average hourly earnings.
Figure 2: Average hourly wage in 2025$ using headline CPI (bold black), wage earner and clerical worker CPI (red), CPI ex-shelter (blue), and Everday Price Index (green). May Everyday Price Index estmated using reported CPI and gasoline price changes. Source: BLS, AIER, and author’s calculations.
The real wage defined using the CPI is back at January 2025 levels, while that using the wage earners CPI is 0.7 percentage points lower. Those consumers perceiving real wages using daily or weekly recurring costs will feel like those are down 3.4%.
By
