With the rise in the gas price since 1998, how could any economist or journalist claim the US is not experiencing rampant inflation?
Download the Excel file.
Federal Reserve employees purposely excludes gas prices from one main CPI number because they can’t massage the data. With computers, they can swap in a lower-priced computer if their target computer becomes too costly. People can’t swap gasoline and mercifully Fed Reserve doesn’t swap in the cost of a bus ticket, even though many people now ride the bus to avoid gas prices.