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Consumer Price Index
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Recent and upcoming methodology changes: 2019
Changes to the CPI establishment frame (posted May 6, 2019)
Starting in October 2019, the CPI Program plans to end the Telephone Point-of-Purchase Survey (TPOPS) and to obtain its retail establishment frame from the same household survey used to obtain the expenditure weights needed to calculate the index. This change to the Consumer Expenditure Surveys (CE) information will eliminate redundancies and inefficiencies in survey operations, and will result in lower household burden. The CE-Diary will be used as the source for most food and food away from home outlets, while the CE-Interview will be used for the bulk of CPI’s outlet frames. CPI plans to refine the location and address data reported in the CE by comparing the household reported data to establishments in the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages business registry.
Reduced sample rotation for select items (posted March 1, 2019)
Beginning with February 2019 sample selections, CPI implemented an adjustment in sample rotation methodology for the electricity, utility (piped) gas service, and hospital services indexes. The sample rotation for each of these items previously followed the standard 4-year cycle, whereby every area would have the sample refreshed every 4 years. The new sample rotation for each of these items now follows an extended cycle of every 8 years, whereby all areas will have their sample selected over 4 years, then the sample will remain in effect for 4 years, before rotating again. An article describing this change and reasoning is scheduled to be released in the summer of 2019.
Telecommunications services (updated January 15, 2019)
With the release of January 2019 data, standalone and bundled packages of residential telecommunications services, which comprise the indexes for land-line telephone services, internet services and electronic information providers, and cable and satellite television service, are quality adjusted to account for the rapid technological change in these services. Additional information on this process is available at Measuring Price Change in the CPI: Telecommunications services
For archived recent and upcoming methodology changes since 2017, see the recent and upcoming methodology change notice archive.
Last Modified Date: August 25, 2022